


Blinding

by HadenXCharm



Series: Blinding [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Gay, Gay Sex, Ghosts, Gun Violence, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Injury, Lemon, Love, M/M, Minor Violence, Multiple Pairings, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Relationship(s), Romance, Sexual Content, Slash, Supernatural Elements, Unrequited Love, Violence, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:50:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HadenXCharm/pseuds/HadenXCharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Escaping dark pasts, Ikkaku and Renji move to a new town. While Ikkaku digs graves, Renji starts as a gardener at the house on the hill, Shade Manor, not knowing that this is where his lost-lover, Ichigo, has been holed up for years. Soon he realizes that winning him back is a far more complicated affair than he'd thought. Meanwhile, Ikkaku is left bereft, having caused his crush’s death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes at starts and ends of chapters are song lyrics. I will put a song list at the end of the story if you're interested. There are also some scenes inspired by classic gothic literature, like Frankenstein, etc. As well as that, there are some small bits of dialogue inspired by the old movie 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.'
> 
> Another thing that I'd like to note is that the end of this story gets kind of convoluted and confusing. It's almost like a 'pick your own adventure' story in the fact that it has a few alternate endings, on account of alternate realities being explored. There'll be four additional epilogue/do-overs/sequels that will be coming afterwards, if anyone's interested. (There's four endings because the story revolves around four different characters)
> 
> So basically, this is a chance for me to change around this storyline while staying within the boundaries of the alternate universe I built. It's fair to say that this is an alternate universe about alternate universes.
> 
> If nobody's interested in continuations, then I won't bother. It's a pretty ambitious project to take on and I'm a total lazybum.

* * *

_Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state  
_ _A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake  
_ _No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber  
_ _Until I realized that it was you who held me under_

* * *

Ikkaku was a screw-up. He could admit that easily. He'd basically been a screw-up since the day he was born, having caused his own mother to die giving birth to him because he'd been facing the wrong way. From there, he'd gone on to be the poster child for a street-urchin, having made it through sex-trafficking, drug-dens, gangs, and other relatively unpleasant things. He'd been a bad kid, a jerk, a thug, he admitted it. He'd fucked up big time, nearly making a living out of failing. He'd dropped out of high school, hadn't been able to find a good job, and had basically only gotten skills at fighting, shouting, drinking, running from the police, and… well  _screwing things up_.

Ikkaku wiped his brow, leaning against the rusty cast-iron fence of the cemetery. He now worked for a funeral home in a dreary, rainy, little town with a population of about five thousand. The sun hardly ever shone for more than three days at a time, they never had summer days warm enough for swimming, and everything was rather drab and sluggish, with an overwhelming theme of grey. Drake's Glen was gloomy and stagnant, but Ikkaku was getting used to it, starting to like it.

Burying coffins wasn't so bad. It was hard to screw up digging a hole, and Ikkaku hadn't done so yet. There actually wasn't that much burying going on. Only occasionally, when one of the older citizens finally croaked, did Ikkaku have to get out the shovel. Most of Ikkaku's job involved landscaping, and upkeep of the funeral home and cemetery, which included vacuuming the carpets, fixing the flickery lights, trimming bushes and watering flowers, sitting at the desk and taking calls when the owner was out, and fighting back the thick woods at the borders of the property. A few graves had already been swallowed up by the brambles and dark trees, but Ikkaku was dealing with the usually-creepy surroundings quite well. He thought of it as a garden instead of a field of bones.

Of course, he wasn't a trained mortician, funeral director, or undertaker, so he actually didn't have to touch any dead people very often, only when they were short-handed. He did the dirty work, literally, the dirty work of making sure the pit was six feet deep and perfectly sized for a casket.

It wasn't so bad. He kind of liked it. Life was so slow and unchanging here that he was glad to finally have a break from his fast-paced unsafe life. He finally had found a place that was nearly wholesome, and he actually felt comfortable walking around at night, which was akin to suicide in the inner cities. This place was so liberating to Ikkaku.

Sure, he did miss the city, his few friends, the bright lights, but out here he could see stars instead of helicopters, he could hear crickets instead of sirens, and he didn't have to feel paranoid about locking his doors and windows. He could breathe, he could  _sleep,_  he could feel unashamedly safe.

He'd heard that somewhere around here were a few familiar faces, a few people he'd gone to high school with. His best friend and part-time kid-brother, Abarai Renji, was following his good decision to get away from his bad past, and had agreed to also move out here. What worried Ikkaku was that he was taking a job at  _that place._

Ikkaku hadn't even bothered trying to talk him out of it, because Renji had that way about him, being bull-headed and stubborn about what he wanted. There was no point, in fact, it would make things worse to voice his concern, because that would just make Renji want to spite him to prove that he was tough.

Still, he was worried, because Renji was headed to the mansion on the hill, the manor of Aizen Sousuke. To put it bluntly, the place was downright creepy, and that was coming from someone who worked in a graveyard at night, burying corpses. Ikkaku had never even gone up there, knowing well enough to stay away just from the way people reacted to it when it came up in conversations.

Everyone seemed to have agreed that they didn't talk about 'that place', and that if anything bad ever happened in Drake's Glen, it probably had to do with that blasted house. The house on the hill had always been an ambiguously abandoned, undiscussed subject. Honestly, it reminded Ikkaku of that mildly disturbing movie where there was a man with scissors for fingers found in an empty mansion.

As far as Ikkaku knew - taking information from an article online, written by someone who had done long hours of research in an archaic library - Sousuke Aizen came from a long line of killers,  _rich_  killers, all of which looked eerily similar. Apparently he was rumored to have some sort of mafia ring going, and hired people on to work for him as servants/baddies who would carry out his evil deeds in other areas and towns. More than once there were mentions of people disappearing after going up to deliver packages or sell cookies. Ikkaku knew well enough to leave the place alone, and he hoped Renji would decide to do the same.

Renji had been depressed for years now. Ikkaku hoped that coming here would help him out of his funk. Renji had lost a lover a while back, and a friend as well. Ikkaku was sad about it too, but he hadn't taken it quite so hard as Renji had. The poor guy had just been heartbroken when Ichigo had left.

He'd just shown up missing one night, gone with all of his things, leaving Renji with no warning or explanation. He'd vanished, seemingly out of thin air, so quickly that Renji hadn't even found out until after he'd already gone. Ikkaku was starting to suspect that Ichigo hadn't left Renji willingly. He was even starting to think that Ichigo was dead somewhere, erased from the world by a higher-up because of the shit Renji had gotten himself into, but he didn't tell Renji this, of course. The guilt would eat the poor guy alive.

Hopefully Renji would be alright, working up there on the hill. Renji could take care of himself, but Ikkaku still worried. He supposed he should be grateful that Renji finally had it in him to  _do_  something. It really was sad, how upset Renji still was, so lonely and empty inside. There hadn't even been any point in talking to him for a while; Renji had been so miserable that he wouldn't speak or eat. Any mention of Ichigo would send him on a downward spiral. He'd even gone so far as to punch Hisagi in the face when he'd suggested that they should go out drinking to help him 'get over' Ichigo. Ikkaku grimaced. Grief made people do crazy things.

Ikkaku looked down the road, peering through all of the dark overhanging branches, trying to see all the way down the road which rose up onto that hill, far, far in the distance. The house was enormous, and was probably lavishly decorated inside, but he had no desire to see it any closer.

Ikkaku just sighed, clapping his dirty gloves together. With the copious amounts of rain that this town provided, there was an abundance of flowers and greenery, but weeds grew like the devil, and Ikkaku liked to have nice, soft, even grass. Crab-grass and clovers were just no fun to walk on bare-foot. That kept him quite busy.

He really had his work cut out for him. Apparently, before he'd come along, they'd just let nature go nuts and left the graves like they were. It was a veritable jungle when he'd first started here. He'd already uprooted a few saplings that were growing too close around some graves, and he'd moved on to the front gate, intending to go back later and patch up the holes in the ground. The bushes he'd been planting along the front of the fence looked alright to him. He just needed to trim them a little, and then he'd take a break.

That was when he turned around and saw  _him._

"What ugly bushes."

Ikkaku's eyebrow twitched, and he grit his teeth. Ayasegawa Yumichika had always had that kind of effect on him, but God, did he love him.

* * *

Renji couldn't feel more conflicted about this job if he had tried. Sure, he thought being a groundskeeper would be nice and fun, a good opportunity, bla bla bla, but he'd heard bad things about his employer, and you know what they say about first impressions.

It had been that way the first time he'd seen  _him._  He'd been so perfect, so real, so trustable. Renji had wanted to be his best friend immediately after they'd first spoken. He'd wanted him so badly, and they'd been so happy together for so long. Their first meeting had told him nothing of how swiftly his lover would disappear, not leaving a trace other than the huge void left behind in Renji's heart, in Renji's life, in his whole  _world_. It got him choked up just thinking about it, remembering how handsome he'd looked the time they'd met.

' _No, no, no. Sh, sh.'_

If the rumors about his employer were true, Renji wasn't sure that this would work out. He was moving here to get away from his bad past, his old life. He couldn't afford to get into trouble that deeply ever again. He needed to grow up and be responsible for once. It was probably why his lover had left him.

Renji had probably stressed him out so much with needing to be bailed out of jail, the huge amounts of money he'd owed to violent crime lords, and having to hide from those people following him from his bad past. It had probably been too much for his lover, too much for his perfect angel who always worried about safety and money. It had been so much that he hadn't been able to take it.

Ichigo had left him to drown, cutting his ties so that he could survive and live on, leaving Renji to fend for himself. Renji understood that he was a tramp down to his bones and that he wasn't good enough for someone that perfect, that  _golden._  He was  _nothing._

' _Hush. Just let a few seconds pass without thinking of him.'_

The drive up here had been interesting, to say the least. The roads weren't set on a rectangular grid like the city was, so there were many turns, tunnels, hills, and mountainsides to go through as he made his way past the continually thickening forest. A car only passed by him once about every twenty minutes, and for once, he hadn't sealed all the windows and doors out of caution of dark violent streets. He liked the feeling of freedom here.

The sky grew more and more grey and dreary as he went, completely clouded over in an even shade, making it look like the color saturation had been taken out of the sky, leaving it a wispy smokey color. It wasn't as if there had been a blue sky back in the city, so he could hardly complain. At least these were rainclouds and not noxious fumes from all the factories.

He was enjoying himself, liking that he couldn't hear a trace of the beeping of car horns or catcalls emanating from groups of thugs harassing passing women, or even worse: screaming, gunshots, or sirens. It was so peaceful, and it seemed like he wouldn't have to be cautious or get jumpy when he was driving through rough neighborhoods. There  _weren't_ any out here. Everything was so serene and nice-seeming. This was great.

At least it had distracted him, just for a moment, from thinking about  _him._

' _Shush, Renji. No more of this.'_

Where was he? Where could he possibly have gone?  _Why_  had he left him? Renji didn't know, and he didn't allow himself to sink back down into the gloomy thoughts that had been haunting him for years, instead thinking of Ikkaku and how he had sounded less than thrilled to know that he was going to be working up at the 'night palace'.

Shade Manor was just one more place that Renji had yet to tackle. He'd made it through drug dens, prostitution rings, child molestation, arrests, dog fights, and rogue gunmen grabbing him in back alleys. He could totally handle a creepy house in a practically abandoned town. He _needed_  to be here.

He needed to come to a place like this so that he could settle down for a while and stay out of trouble. He was so tired of being afraid, so tired of his heart jumping every time he saw a police car or someone standing menacingly on an opposite street corner. He was so tired of having to carry a knife with him everywhere, always walking with his hands in his pockets, head down, face hidden under a hoodie. He just wanted to be able to breathe, to  _think._

Ikkaku probably didn't know what he was talking about. Shade Manor could be nowhere  _near_  as bad as Khargal City. Renji had lost track of how many times he'd barely escaped with his life, and he understood how it may have become too much for his lover. It was too much for him too, and he was finally leaving it behind. He should have done this years ago; maybe if he had, he wouldn't have lost Kurosaki Ichigo.

Ikkaku probably thought that he was delirious from grief, maybe unable to handle coming out here and working for creepy strangers. Renji wasn't scared, just lonely. That was all.

He understood - looking around as he came closer and closer to the town limits - why Ikkaku seemed to like it so much here. Ikkaku had come here for the same reason he had: to escape his bad life.

The place was peaceful, maybe a bit drab, but peaceful all the same. Yumichika and his fiance had even decided to come live here, to take a break from their fast-paced life of fame and fortune. Life was slower, maybe repetitive and boring, but the people were wholesome, and violent crime was nonexistent. Security was what Renji needed right now.

He was actually looking forward to seeing the place, Shade Manor, up on its supposedly foreboding hill. He'd already been hired on for a trial period after a phone interview, and he supposed he just got to live in the house if he was a worker, so he had packed up all the shit he had in the world and carted it with him. It wasn't like it was a lot.

He was to be a non-descript groundskeeper, gardener, and a general repair-man, just another of the various servants and workers that were needed to keep the estate running. He had no idea how his workdays would be like or how his coworkers and boss would be, but he'd heard that a lot of infamous weirdos lived there.

Old houses, especially large ornate ones, fascinated him. He loved architecture and the layout of gardens and rooms. Sadly, there wasn't much greenery to be had back in the city. Somehow, he'd managed to get his degree after Ichigo had left him, knowing that it was what he would've wanted for him, to have a better life. Ichigo had been the one who had convinced him to go to college in the first place, and he'd been the reason he'd decided to pursue his dreams.

He had hoped that by the time he'd finished school, that he and Ichigo would be living together somewhere nice, maybe get married and have a cat or a kid.

 

Here he was now, finally with that degree he'd slaved over, but Ichigo was gone and his motivation had died. Ichigo would've been so proud of him, but he'd never know for sure now that he was gone. He was all alone, still trying to crawl his way out of the pit he'd been born in.

' _Stop. Don't think of him. Just stop.'_

He couldn't wait to see if the house was overrun or covered in ivy. It felt like being a kid pretending to be a treasure-hunter, but he didn't care. It would be fun to mill around and take care of a crumbling old home, turning the brambles into rose bushes, fixing up broken steps and tiles, cutting back weeds until things didn't look quite so gloomy and forgotten. If the place was a mansion like the name suggested, he assumed there was a huge garden and a lot of lawn space. Even though his real passion was working on cars - his degree had been for auto-body mechanics - he still was excited nonetheless.

He'd have time to himself, time to think, and most importantly, he'd just have  _time_.

For a while Renji had thought that Ichigo had maybe died, gotten tangled up in all the shit he had gotten them into. Maybe Ichigo had been caught by a mob-boss and erased from existence. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he'd moved as far away from him as possible to leave all that darkness behind. Maybe their relationship hadn't been worth it to Ichigo anymore.

Maybe Ichigo had just stopped loving him.

' _No. He loved me. He did. He had to have loved me. He said so.'_

Renji rubbed a hand over his mouth, swallowing hard, not wanting to sink deep enough that he would cry. His heart could hardly take this, even though it should be used to the pain after so long. Fuck getting over Ichigo. He couldn't get over him, and he wouldn't. That kid was an asshole, a real jerk, but Renji had fallen so in love with him. If he couldn't have Ichigo then he'd rather be alone, even if it hurt like this for the rest of his days.

It was better to be in pain than to lose his heart all together. If his heart was hurting, then at least he knew that it was still there. That was the one thing that he wouldn't let this horrible world take.

As he thought of his lover again, his sweetheart who had left him without a trace, his baby who had gone up in smoke in the blink of an eye, he knew in the pit of his stomach that Kurosaki Ichigo had not died and was still out there waiting for him, if only he would think to look.

Someday... Just maybe...

* * *

"Oh," Yumichika said with a little confused frown, as if he knew that he recognized Ikkaku and was searching for his name.

Ikkaku just stared back, a little subdued, smiling somewhat shyly at him and the beautiful glow that the guy had always had. Ayasegawa was a complete brat, but Ikkaku loved him, even after all this time.

"It's Ikkaku," Ikkaku said flatly, turning back to the bushes a little bitterly. Frick. His heart was pounding like crazy, he was so excited. Yumichika was on vacation here? Maybe he had  _moved_  here.

' _Crap, act natural.'_

Yumichika gave him a strange look, but then started grinning.

Ikkaku scuffed his toe on the ground, scowling. "What, you don't remember me?"

Yumichika gave him an unimpressed look when he saw his dirty wheelbarrow and tools.

"Of course, how could I forget someone like you? Your name was just eluding me for a moment." With a sigh, Yumichika gestured to the cemetery and the crows landing all over the place. They had landed on Ikkaku while he worked more than once, but he didn't mind as long as they didn't bite.

"Scary looking things," Yumichika murmured at the sight of a particularly large bird. "And such ugly singing voices."

"They're not singin'. They're bitchin' to each other," Ikkaku answered back, trying to control the flutters in his stomach. Maybe along with this new start, he could be brave enough to ask Yumichika to come over, to eat lunch with him or something. They could be happy together, just maybe, even though there was no way he deserved someone so perfect and beautiful. Fuck his stupid soft heart. He'd forgotten that it was in there, but damn, it was still his weakness.

He was a screw-up. He was  _bad_. He kept reminding himself of that and backed off of the idea of trying to get Yumichika involved with him. It was a bad idea. They could be friends, maybe, but Ikkaku knew that all he could bring Yumichika was misery. Ever since his luck had turned sour, so did everything he touched, almost like Midas. So as sad as it made him, he kept his feelings in, wanting so badly to just reach out and touch him, to make these feelings real.

He looked up into those beautiful purple eyes, those of which he had never seen an equal, and smiled a little, heart pulsating irregularly. Damn those stupid sparkly eyes of Yumichika's. Fuck them. What a jerk, making him blush like this.

"You're working too hard. No hurry, right?" Yumichika quipped, giving him a sunny grin that showed that Yumichika did remember him and had missed him. Ikkaku wondered how close by Yumichika lived and whether he'd be able to see him often.

"Heh'," Ikkaku laughed at the joke, "Yeah, they're not going anywhere, an' it's not like they can enjoy the view." He looked through the rusting iron bars at the familiar tombstones. He'd try to scrape off some of the mold and lichen later, make everything look a little fresher, just in case Yumichika ever stopped by to walk around with him, maybe catch up. He knew that Yumichika liked flowers. Maybe he should plant some more. "Haven't seen you in a while, whatcha' been up to?"

"Oh, You know. Acting, traveling, fooling around," he said with a little shrug, crawling his fingers up Ikkaku's stomach in some harmless flirtation. Oh, how Ikkaku loved that free tone of Yumichika's, so vibrant and inviting. It made Ikkaku want to touch him back, but he let Yumichika's advances warm him and nothing more.

Yumichika had a life and  _dreams,_ and Ikkaku was  _not_  going to risk wrecking that with his contagious bad luck... He was fooling himself. It wasn't just bad luck; he was a bad person, plain and simple. He got into horrible crap because he was a dumb idiot who couldn't control his temper. He would completely fuck up Yumichika's life.

Still, he had a bad feeling that his emotions were showing on his face.  _Fuck_ his stupid heart!

Ikkaku didn't scream, but only for the sake of being able to hear what Yumichika was saying.

"I've been gathering fame and along with that, I find that I seem to be losing time for myself, so I decided to come to a place where time stands still. My career will have to wait for a little while. I have more important things to take care of at the moment. There's so much more life I still have to live." Ikkaku shrugged, not mentioning the fact that he avidly followed Yumichika's film career. "How about you?"

"Gettin' my act together. Doin' shit."

"Oh, I'm so glad to hear it…" Yumichika looked at him, side-slitting his eyes at the graveyard. "Don't tell me you…"

"Yep, I do." Ikkaku nodded, confirming that he was indeed a grave-digger.

"Hm, how morbid. I suppose it's better than before, though," he commented on Ikkaku's past life. Ikkaku cringed a little, rubbing the back of his neck. At least Yumichika sounded pleased that he was finally doing something that would help his life rather than hurt it.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" he asked in interest, hoping he could gauge a little bit more about Yumichika, maybe find out his address.

"Oh, I've been thinking of settling down here, you know, taking a break from my beautiful life."

"Is gathering fame more exhausting than it looks?"

Yumichika rolled his eyes, leaning in and swatting his arm. "You have  _no_  idea." Ikkaku laughed, smile lingering a little as he looked back at that beautiful face. The flirtation gave him hope that maybe he could become someone better, that he could become a good man and make Yumichika happy, that he could be good enough for him, good enough to treat him right.

"It's all worth it though. I'm living out my dreams. Everything's just beautiful."

Things didn't seem quite so gloomy or bleak anymore; Ikkaku was excited to know that Yumichika was living here and intended to stay from the sounds of it. Ikkaku's life was finally going in a direction he liked.

"Anyways, I was going to ask you, do you know the way to the post office? I have a letter to mail to my fiance's parents." Ikkaku's heart immediately dropped, disappointment taking him over like a tidal wave.

"Ah… yeah, it's that way," he pointed vaguely. "Take Clinton and follow it until you hit the library, and then turn right." Yumichika thanked him, pecked him on the cheek, and pranced off, probably the only glimmer of color and vibrancy in this entire town. He had been Ikkaku's tiny fragment of light, his little chance for hope, for finally having happiness with no guilt or fear, and it had gone out like a candle.

_'There goes my heart… Who needs that stupid thing anyways...'_

Ikkaku sighed in disappointment, kicking the fence, feeling a little better when it rattled in protest, scaring away a few of the Morrigan's buddies in a big cloud of cawing and greasy feathers. Fuck. Was the universe punishing him some more?

He'd met up with his high school crush, and then found out that he was getting married, probably to some rich handsome guy. Of all the horrible luck… Well, it wasn't as if he didn't deserve this. He'd done a lot of wrong, and he did sort of deserve for karma to come back to bite him. Still, it hurt like a bitch.

He shrugged, getting on with his day. It wasn't as if he couldn't see Yumichika anymore or something; he just didn't have any sort of chance to get together with him, and it wasn't like he'd ever had one in the first place. He shouldn't be selfish about sharing something that had never been his. Whoever Yumichika was going to settle down for must be amazing, and he couldn't compete with that in a million years. Besides, he wasn't one of those dudes who got all butthurt about that imaginary 'friend-zone'. Yumichika's friendship was just as valuable to Ikkaku as his kisses.

Ikkaku didn't realize that he had given Yumichika false directions until later that day, when he was dragging all his equipment back into the shed, locking it for the evening. He realized that the post office was on Fleet Street and was not in the direction he'd pointed Yumichika in. The sun had gone down, and the town was quieter than was normal, even though the place was always pretty peaceful; Even the crows and crickets were silent now, which was odd.

He'd gotten mixed up and had given Yumichika wrong directions. Another screw-up to add to the list. Oh well. He hoped that Yumichika wasn't upset about it and had found his way to the post office anyways. Ikkaku hadn't done that on purpose, after all. It wasn't that big of a deal. The town was small. Yumichika would find it eventually. He'd apologize the next time he saw him.

Ikkaku made his usual rounds back through the funeral home, seeing that the director had gone home long ago. He checked that everything was locked up, shook awake the assistant mortician and the receptionist, and then he went back to his tiny little apartment, crappy carpeting, rickety fire escape, creaky floorboards and all.

He read it the next morning when he got his newspaper out of his mail-cubby.

Because of his new profession, his eyes usually darted towards more morbid articles, and this one seemed no different than the rest at first. ' _Head-on collision occurrence, civilian fatality, corner of Clinton and Stonewall, 3:26 pm, September 12, 20-.'_

His heart started racing and he blinked a couple times, gut clenching up. Memories of Yumichika smiling at him earlier that day were playing through his head on an endless loop as he just stared in horror.

 

* * *

 _And if you get to heaven  
_ _I'll be here waiting, babe  
_ _Did you get what you deserve?_


	2. Chapter 2

_Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids_  
_Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs_

* * *

"Please, sir, I don't care about the risks, alright? Just tell me."

"But you'll only waste your time," the man said in exasperation, still trying to make him reconsider - rather desperately, if Renji did say so himself.

"But it's  _my time,"_ Renji said patiently. He could see the mansion up on the hill from here, but the streets of this town were crooked and winding, and it might take him hours to find the right way up there. Eventually he convinced the guy to fork over the directions, which really should be public knowledge anyway as Renji pointed out, so he went ahead and started for the strange place.

Maybe it was a local prank or legend that Ikkaku had been in on, because Ikkaku had tried to keep him from coming up here too. It was all hokum, as Ichigo would say. Ichigo had always hated stupid things like that, superstitions, feng-shui, and good-luck charms.

' _Sh.'_

Renji just rolled his eyes, shaking his head to himself as he drove up the secluded shady hillside, up to the sprawling grounds of Shade Manor. Stupid prank, if you asked him. It was just a normal old house filled with rich-people stuff, nothing special.

After parking his pick-up truck, Renji wandered around for a while, marveling at the queen-anne styled architecture and layout of the house, the cathedral-like windows, some even complete with stained-glass. The paneled sides of the house were still in good shape, and the foundation seemed sound, even if it was laid out strangely.

He walked around the estate for a little while longer, trying to find an appropriate door to knock. Eventually he came up to a wide, chipped, stone staircase, with a set of heavy double doors at the top. He assumed that this must be the 'castle's' entrance, so he jogged up to the top and knocked a couple of times with the iron knocker, which was in the shape of a snake with a ring in its mouth.

He waited and bummed around for a few minutes, and just as he decided to try knocking again or sticking his head inside and calling, the door opened, revealing two pretty, but savage-looking girls in french maid outfits. Damn, maybe this place was fancier than he'd thought. That unsettled him, because he wasn't good at all that decorum and etiquette stuff. He hoped that he'd be working outside most of the time.

"Uh… Hi, Um… I'm just here to answer your help wanted ad," he said cautiously, voicing it as a question. "I actually called over the phone, and they said that I should come in for a trial basis or something," Renji rambled a little, keenly aware at the black haired girl's suspicious stare.

"Abarai Renji?" the dirty-blonde asked. Renji nodded. Their demeanors quickly changed. "Oh, you must be here for the groundskeeping position?" He nodded again, smiling excitedly. "You need to look for our head-servant, he's around here somewhere. He'll tell you what you need to do."

"Look around back near the shed and backdoor. He's supposed to be organizing your workload," the black-haired girl piped up, handing him a double-layered map. "If you don't find him there, he might be with Grimmjow-sama." Then she gave a vicious condescending smile. "I am Loly, and this is Menoly. Would you like us to take your bags to your room?"

"Uh, that's nice of you, but it's alright, I'll do it later," Renji said, not too comfortable with the vicious look on Loly's face. After thanking them for the help, he let them go, jogging down the steps and beginning to tromp through the tall uneven grass, following along the side of the building.

He soon came across what was probably meant to be a garden, but it was much too large and overgrown for him to envision it as such quite yet. There were crumbling stone walls and a fountain in disrepair with vines growing all over it. There were murky ponds and flower patches that had been overtaken by weeds and small saplings, and there were dead branches all over the sprawling willow trees, covering the ground with the brittle wood.

Eventually he came across a back door with chipping teal paint and vines growing around the molding, and he knocked smartly, opening it part way. "Hello? Um… I'm looking for," his breath cut off, and his voice trailed away as he froze solid, staring at who was in front of him.

It was almost surreal as he laid eyes on the person in front of him. The orange-haired man turned around in confusion and stopped dead, seeming less perturbed, but equally as frozen, as if he was simply surprised instead of stricken, like Renji. For a short moment, Renji thought he was dreaming or hallucinating out of grief, but no, the person was blinking. He was real.

"..." Renji took a breath, trying to speak, but nothing happened as he swallowed, lifting a hand and pointing at him, afraid that his vision might disappear. "Y-..." He took a step forward, part of him wanting to touch Ichigo to prove to himself that this was real, that Ichigo was really here in front of him, that he hadn't been dead or gone like he'd thought, only hiding in this obscure corner of the world.

Ichigo gave him a wary half-smile, and all of a sudden Renji had grabbed him by his skinny shoulders and pulled him into a desperate, needy, airtight hug. It had been years,  _years_  since he'd last been able to hold him like this.

"Oh my god…" Renji panted, one hand coming up behind his lost-lover's back, cradling the back of his head as he held him tightly, face still fitting perfectly into the crook of his shoulder. "I thought… I thought I'd lost you… I thought I'd never see you again," he said, a little dazed as his shoulders began shaking. The reality of this event had still yet to hit him full-force. Maybe he'd finally lost it, or perhaps this was a cruel dream. No, Ichigo was warm, Ichigo was breathing; he  _had_ to be real.

He felt Ichigo awkwardly patting his back, allowing his embrace, but not returning it much. Renji pulled back, still not wanting to let go of the man for a single second as he looked back at him. Ichigo was gaunt, grey in the face, and was thinner than he remembered, but oh, he didn't care. Ichigo was still so handsome, still so perfect like he'd been all that time ago, even if he looked a little beaten down by life. He'd found him, he'd really found him! His life wasn't doomed; everything could go back to normal. He had a chance for salvation, all because man was back in his life, even if only as an acquaintance. He'd  _found_  him.

"I missed you," Renji whispered in an unsure tone as he ran a thumb along the side of Ichigo's cheek. Ichigo didn't meet his eyes, shying away from the contact with a grimace. Renji sighed, knowing that it was probably too soon. Ichigo had left him after all. It was obvious he didn't still want to be with him. Perhaps it had taken him too long to find him in time. It had been years. There was no way Ichigo still had feelings for him.

It hurt Renji a lot, but it was okay, it was okay if Ichigo didn't accept him or want to be lovers again, just as long as Renji could see him and talk to him. He could work on winning his heart later; he'd done it once, and he would do it again, no matter how long it took, no matter how bleak the circumstances. Things would be better now, now that they weren't under the stress of Renji's dangerous lifestyle. He would show Ichigo that it was okay for them to be in love again, to be freely happy. Everything would be better. All he had to do was make sure he didn't get away.

"Uh… I'm looking for the head servant. I'm answering an ad for bein' a gardener an shit?" he said roughly, still openly staring at Ichigo. He was still so surprised and excited that he'd found him that he could hardly function. Ichigo scoffed a little and thumbed his own chest with a look that said 'are you stupid?'

"Okay, okay… So, do I get the job?" Ichigo shrugged, handing him a list with that handwriting that Renji knew so well. There were well-written notes, telling him where to get his equipment and where to start, with tips and tricks that would make life easier. "Alright, I can do that… This'll be fun," he mumbled, still extremely jittery, unable to take his eyes off Ichigo for more than a few seconds at a time. He wanted to touch him so badly, to hold him and stroke his hair to prove to himself that this wasn't a dream, that everything would finally be okay.

"Ichigo?" he started, hating how pitiful he sounded. Ichigo's brown eyes were shifty and cautious, but they raised to his eventually, looking back with wariness. "I…" he cut himself off, swallowing, "I missed you… when you left," he said desperately, heart breaking for the thousandth time. "You were just gone..." His head dropped, and he found that his fingers were shaking even though he had fisted them. He took a step towards Ichigo.

Ichigo lifted his thin hands hesitantly, as if he wanted to push him back. Renji halted immediately, seeing in Ichigo's eyes that he felt threatened. Ichigo's mouth twitched and suddenly his guarding hands reached out and wrapped around his shoulders a little, patting him awkwardly as he was kept at arm's length. Maybe Ichigo had noticed that he was about to cry.

"... I've been a wreck, you jerk. I've missed you…" He held Ichigo's hands in front of him, trying to look in his eyes as he begged for forgiveness. The thought of losing Ichigo again was unbearable. "Please come back to me, baby, I promise I won't ever make ya' go through that hell again. I'm gonna' change, I promise, I'm gonna' fix everything... for  _you,_ I  _love_  you," he said, voice unsteady as he slowly took Ichigo back into a hug. Ichigo was stiff in his arms, but after a few moments he accepted the embrace, going lax, laying his head down on his shoulder like he'd always used to.

Renji stroked his hair, breathing irregularly, blinking rapidly as he held the thin body close to him. Part of him was scared that he might break Ichigo. Why was he so damned skinny? "You don't know how much I fell apart with you gone… I… I'm gonna' change… I'm gonna' stay out of trouble so that I can make you proud of me… I love you, please… I know how hard I made things for you… please forgive me," he begged. Ichigo backed up, letting Renji hold his hands as he looked back at him with regretful eyes.

"... Say somethin'... Say somethin' ta' me," Renji begged, squeezing Ichigo's hands. Ichigo gave him that little false half-smile and brought a hand up to his throat. Renji frowned, not understanding. Ichigo gave a sigh, taking the paper list back, slipping a little pencil out of the back pocket of his pants. It was at that point that Renji realized that Ichigo was dressed up.

He had on a white button-down shirt, with a black pinstriped vest on top, as if he had been in a suit, but had taken off the jacket. His hair was styled so that it was spiked up in the front, and he smelled like expensive cologne. Renji kept a finger linked through one of Ichigo's, not wanting to let him slip away again. He was taking whatever contact Ichigo would give him, however small, clinging to the hope that maybe Ichigo still wanted him and would give him another chance. He was terrified that this might be another cruel dream.

Ichigo flattened the paper list against the wall, writing something on the back. He handed it to Renji, who was growing suspicious and rather sick to his stomach. His gut was clenching up, telling him that something was very wrong.

' _Are you sure you want to see?'_

"What… What do you mean?" Renji asked warily. Ichigo pointed to his own mouth, making a pinching gesture. "What… I don't understand, sweetheart…" Ichigo gave a little smile, head bowing forward in exasperation.

Renji touched his shoulder, leaning down to catch his eyes again, making Ichigo straighten up. "What do I need to see?" Ichigo looked back at him uncertainly for a moment, before slowly opening up so that Renji could see why he wasn't talking. Renji recoiled in horror.

Ichigo's tongue had been cut out.

* * *

 _Little lost angel, why didn't you fly?_  
_You can't get back to heaven, but you don't wanna' die._  
_Poor little person can't help but get hurt,_  
_The thing about humans is they never learn._

* * *

Ikkaku didn't cry at the funeral.

The service was short, and the church was empty. It would've been Yumichika's worst nightmare to know that he'd been forgotten, that his beauty had been so fragile and easily broken. Nobody came to see him off, not his family, not his friends, not his fans. This town was so secluded that the news didn't get out fast enough for any mourners to come pay their respects. The only person there was Yumichika's poor fiance, who had sobbed and thrown a complete fit, showing all the emotion and pain of such a tragic loss. He had to be dragged away from the closed casket.

Ikkaku watched on, feeling cold as they pushed the coffin out of the small church. There he was, left with the shiny black case. Beautiful though it was, flowers and engravings on the sides of the casket, that didn't matter. Really, this was only a cell that would hold Yumichika for the rest of eternity.

Ikkaku's luck, his horrible luck had done this. He should have known that such a streak of good fortune to have moved by chance to a town where he would meet up with his longtime secret-love would have a terrible price. If only he'd never looked at Yumichika or spoken to him, never wanted to kiss him or love him. Maybe then the poor thing would've been spared death.

It was raining, as if the only ones witness to this loss were the angels, hidden up above the grey clouds. If heaven existed, Ikkaku hoped that Yumichika would be sent there.

The guilt was swirling within him then, as he was left there to find a space for the body, left to shovel dirt over Yumichika, to hide him from mortal eyes. Ikkaku made sure he left some flowers, patting the wet dirt down real nice as he stood there in the rain and gloom.

Yumichika had been so young.

Thinking that, making himself think that was what made him lose it. Even if Yumichika had been a year older than him, Yumichika had been so young, so beautiful, with so much life ahead of him, and that had been taken away because of his mistake. That was when the tears came, as he prepared a dirty cross made out of two pieces of metal piping that were covered with flaking white paint. He hardly had to press down to make the marker sink into the soft dirt where Yumichika's head would be.

He broke down then, crumpling to his knees, dropping his shovel as he flopped over, shaking down to his bones. He cried into a dirty hand, finally grieving, face scrunched up as he wept and shuddered, forehead nearly touching the ground as he fisted his hands and raged. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that Yumichika had died because of him. It had been so quick, so unstoppable, so insignificant seeming that Ikkaku felt helpless. It was  _stupid_ , such a stupid thing to die over. False directions,  _really._  It didn't make sense. It wasn't right.

 _Snap._  Just like that Yumichika had been there, and the next moment he was gone. Yumichika had had a chance for fame, for love, for happiness, and that had been taken away. Ikkaku had been a bum, a druggie, a violent youth who graffitied up walls and broke windows with his boots. Yumichika had done great things, spreading his incredible acting skills across stage and film screen alike, and Ikkaku had been a burden to society. He had deserved death, not Yumichika. It seemed so cruel for this to happen.

He clawed at his own face, crying so hard that it was hurting his chest as he let rainwater run into his eyes and down his neck. It wasn't fair that Yumichika had been forgotten here, that the world wasn't paying attention to the loss, that they didn't care, that no one knew.

He hadn't meant it. He hadn't wanted Yumichika to die. He hadn't meant to rub his bad luck and his filthiness off onto the beautiful snob, but it seemed that it was inevitable. Yumichika was dead, stone cold dead, probably torn apart inside of that box, marble skin marred where the glass from the windshield had cut his body.

A closed casket would've been the last thing that Yumichika wanted.

No one had expected this. Nobody even knew because of the small nature of the town. The world didn't know, didn't care, didn't mourn along with him, and it tore him apart. There was no will, no child left behind, nothing that Yumichika had left to the world as a legacy besides his movies where he'd poured out his soul to millions of people. It wasn't fair that his life had been turned off like a light switch, blown out like a candle. He deserved a goodbye, he deserved for people to cry for him and miss him.

Ikkaku sat there in the rain crying and aching, letting mud get all over him as he sat there all night in the dark dank cemetery, watching over Yumichika's grave-space, not letting any crows land anywhere near the area. He didn't care about the storm whipping around him. The thunder seemed to help him grieve.

His feet started sinking into the dirt of the grave, and part of him wanted to be swallowed up, sucked in down there so he could die and lay near Yumichika forever, so he wouldn't have to feel this guilt. He didn't want to get up and carry on. He didn't want the world to keep spinning with Yumichika down there rotting.

When it finally stopped raining, Ikkaku got up.

He got up and tromped home, wet, muddy, and broken, ruining his blankets by laying down on his bed without cleaning himself off. He didn't care. Nothing mattered now. At some point the pain became so intense that it began to blur his consciousness, until he simply fell asleep. His boss had to come wake him up, as he moped around well into the afternoon of the next day.

He lolled on through the week, sad to hear that the newspapers of the outside world had finally caught wind of their young beautiful actor's tragic passing, offering tributes and talk show episodes dedicated to talking about his promising film career. They were too late. Now that Yumichika was dead, he was unable to feel their love and appreciation, to feel how much the world missed him and grieved his loss. It just broke Ikkaku's heart to see all the flowers and cards being sent in to Yumichika's only public address, which was linked to his fiance.

The poor guy hadn't been able to take the pain and had slit his throat. Ikkaku hoped that the two of them were happy together somewhere, maybe eating strawberries and laying in a sunny field, maybe playing around forever on Happy Island, whatever heaven was like.

By then, more of the world was paying attention to the string of events, and Kaa's death appeared on news stations and magazines on supermarket racks. It was just shameful, really, how cold seeming and disrespectful it was. Many news reporters, tearful fans, family members, and tabloid artists showed up to offer well wishes, and to snoop around in Ikkaku's opinion. He just wished they would leave, even if they were truly sorry about Yumichika's passing. They were too late; they should just go away.

More than once he'd had to practically bludgeon a pushy paparazzi away from the graveyard's front gate with his shovel, telling them that Ayasegawa Yumichika's grave was unmarked anyways and that they were wasting their time. He hadn't resorted to going to the police to have them put tape up around the place, but sometimes he wished that he had. He was tired of chasing people away, people who were crying and sniffling and leaving cards. He missed Yumichika too, after all. He knew how it felt.

Their tiny town would be forgotten by the rest of the world soon enough, and Yumichika would've been upset to know that the earth continued spinning so easily without him. Ikkaku began to feel sick and depressed all the time, hardly able to drag himself out of bed in the morning. He finally knew how Renji felt to have his precious love go up in smoke so suddenly.

The time had come to take care of Kaa, the poor guy that Yumichika had been intending to marry. He was very handsome, Ikkaku had to admit, combing the guy's dyed maroon hair, trying not to look at the deep slit in his neck. The morticians were busy turning people away from the funeral home, telling them to stay back and leave, that there was nothing to see.

Ikkaku dabbed the dried blood off of his neck and positioned the guy's body nicely, but it was hard for the man to look at rest with such a tortured expression on his face. He kept trying to close Kaa's eyelids, but they kept popping open, making the corpse look agonized and distraught. No one could tell Ikkaku that the dead looked peaceful.

He eventually gave up, closing the lid of the crate after patting the guy's chest in comfort, even if the body couldn't feel it. Kaa was to be sent to the crematorium, at the request of his suicide note. Still, he needed to look nice for when his family came to see him later in the day. They might not want to honor his wish, after all.

Maybe he'd sprinkle some of the ashes near Yumichika later, whatever was left after Kaa's family came. He liked to think that it would help them both rest easier, to be put to sleep near each other. It had to be uncomfortable and cramped in that cushy coffin-space. It probably didn't smell really great; Yumichika would have a fit over the ugly cushions and the unflattering color. Maybe he'd like some nice lavender candles.

Ikkaku slapped himself a couple times. Was he cracking up? Yumichika was  _dead_. He couldn't like anything or complain about ugly surroundings. Still, he thought that maybe it would be nice to make the area around Yumichika's resting place look presentable.

He wandered around late into the night, having to bury a sweet old lady who had welcomed him to the neighborhood with a plate of cookies. The poor thing hadn't had any relatives left and her remaining money had only been enough to pay for her name to be on her headstone. Ikkaku made sure to pick a spot that wouldn't be likely to flood, and laid down sod on top of the place where she lay.

' _There. Sleep well.'_

The crows were going nuts for some reason, and they were pissing him off, which was strange, because he didn't usually mind. It was dark, and he was starting to feel a bit antsy and creeped out, as if someone was watching him. That never happened. He never got scared of this place. He never let the silence, the wind, or the rain trick him into hearing things or seeing monsters. It was just a shaded decorated field next to a woods.

He stuck his shovel into the ground, taking a moment to lean back against a tree, peering through the darkness. After being frightened by a passing cat, the crows cawing began to sound like laughter, and he grew so upset that he threw a rock at the birds. "That's  _enough!"_  he shouted, voice echoing in the woods and quickly being drowned out. "Yumichika needs his beauty sleep," he said blandly, bringing a lump to his throat.

 _He_ needed to get some sleep. He hadn't been able to eat or keep a smile on his face since Yumichika had died. He understood Renji now. Guilt and grief make people do crazy things, and Ikkaku did feel a little crazy. This town seemed so much bleaker than it had a few days ago. His life suddenly seemed like a black hole, everything good that he'd ever had or seen being sucked into it and destroyed.

He should be wearing black to keep up with his state of mourning. He realized with a small jolt that he should light incense and say some words in Yumichika's honor, maybe put up a photo and dress in black for a while.

"Nah… I always say life's black enough already without dressing in it too." Ikkaku spat onto the muddy ground, tromping around a few headstones, always careful not to walk over the top of where anyone was laying. He didn't want to wake them up, after all. He headed towards the mausoleum in the far corner, trying to keep himself from starting to cry again. Really, the worst part of all this would be calling Renji to tell him what had happened. He'd arrived yesterday after being on the road for about a week, and he probably hadn't heard about Yumichika's passing yet. Renji would be  _devastated_.

Ikkaku shook his head, continuing on. His shed was near the mausoleum, and he needed to put his wheelbarrow away. He was done planting flowers that no one would ever smell or pick.

Suddenly, he heard a snapping noise. He stopped dead, all the hairs rising on his neck immediately. He hadn't watched a horror film since he'd started this job, not wanting to give his mind any reason to make him afraid or excitable like this. It was just that cat again probably, just a brittle branch snapping on its own, just nature settling down for the night. By over thinking it, he was just making himself think it was creepy. There was nothing wrong.

He moved slowly, gut clenching up as he tried to calm himself down. One thing he didn't like was how hard it was to see this late. The moon was providing a bit of light, just enough that he could see a glow on the nicer headstones, the white marble ones. Other than that, it was pitch black, and his eyes only adjusted enough to let him see everything in a horrible staticky darkness.

The wind was picking up and the birds were starting to caw again, getting him anxious to go home and hide under his blankets. It was just a bone-yard; he kept repeating that in his mind. It was just his imagination, nothing was wrong.

His rational mind kept telling him that there was nothing to be afraid of, that all the dead were asleep and that he was being stupid. That didn't keep him from rushing to the shed quicker than he ever had. He'd never gotten so spooked doing his work before, and he didn't like it. Things seemed bleaker, scarier than before.

If he had been rational and unafraid, he probably wouldn't have turned on his flashlight the moment he got to the shed door. He snatched the thing off its hook and turned it on, forgetting that being able to see a small bit of light made everything seem so much darker, giving him that feeling of being cornered, of something sneaking up behind him.

Immediately, as he looked back the way he came, he saw something move, and he turned the light off as quickly as it had come on. He had seen some eyes light up in the glow of the flashlight, but they were probably just from the cat he'd seen earlier. The eyes had been close to the ground after all.

He stood there stock still, listening to the wind whistling through the trees of the surrounding woods, ears straining to hear anything out of the ordinary.

He swallowed, having trouble because of how dry his mouth had become, walking forward as he clutched his stomach sickly. He left his things there, deciding that he'd put them away tomorrow. He couldn't stay here. Something was gonna' get him, even if it was childish to think so. He felt like something was coming to get him, and all he wanted to  _get_  was  _out of here._

The crows were cawing again, gathering forward around something that he couldn't see. His vision had been shocked by the quick change from complete blackness to the light of the flashlight, so now his eyes had to readjust again.

He was power-walking now, just wanting to get out of this place, this huge graveyard that no longer seemed like a peaceful place. He heard a snap again and stopped stock still like before, listening as he heard something big moving around. That was _not_  a cat. Then there was the distinct sound of footsteps, and then a pained moan.

That had  _not_  been his imagination. He was sure of it.

He ducked behind a large shrine that had a stone statue of a horseman on top of it. He peered out, feeling threatened and unsafe, eyes straining against the blackness. He was shaking all over, and his heart was racing out of control.

"Nngh." He heard another moan, and then the unmistakable sound of coughing. He heard a  _voice_ , a voice that wasn't creepy or horror-movie-like at all _._ Just a normal voice.

That was when he saw it. There was someone walking around over there, haggard and weary, moaning occasionally and clutching at their own body. Maybe someone had snuck in to mourn a loved one and had gotten drunk.

Ikkaku's eyes narrowed and part of him promised to gut the person for scaring him so bad. He'd been so scared for a minute there that he'd nearly peed his pants.

Then he noticed the stiff gait, the crookedness of the limbs, and the signature gesture of a zombie, arms up and out like a blind person feeling their way around.

He crept closer, knowing that this was probably just some stupid prank, somebody fumbling around in the dark, but as he crept closer and closer, he was starting to recognize the blood-stained clothing and the shape of the body. He stumbled back, nearly slipping down into a muddy hole. As he looked up, he saw that the head of the figure had turned around sharply, and suddenly, with a thrill of terror, he knew exactly what was going on.

Yumichika had crawled out of his grave. He was alive.

"Y…" His voice was shakier than he would've liked, but he was brave, relieved. An ominous crackle of thunder could be heard in the far distance. "Yumichika… Oh my god, you're alive," he panted, approaching him.

Part of him was beginning to hope that things would be okay again, that their lives would be happy once again, but another part of him knew that this was too good to be true. Yumichika's lover had killed himself out of sorrow, his fans all thought him dead, and his possessions were already being given away because of his lack of a will. Yumichika's life would be a mess, but at least he was alive. He would be okay. That was all that mattered to Ikkaku.

Yumichika moaned and stumbled a little, holding his own torso with a tortured expression, shuffling towards Ikkaku, coming out from the shadows of the night into the stark moonlight.

Ikkaku scrambled back with a surprised shout, seeing the horrific wounds, the white bone of Yumichika's cheek where his face had been cut on the glass of the broken windshield. His blood had dried up and he looked rather gaunt, but still salvageable if he were to be taken to the hospital and fixed up. Still, the twisted limbs, the wobbly broken body, the horrific wounds, they made Ikkaku's stomach hurt. He hadn't laid eyes on Yumichika since he'd pranced away from him that day, and seeing those wounds now was making him imagine how Yumichika had almost died. His heart pounded wildly, staring back at the man, wondering how his skinny arms had allowed him to open his coffin underground and then crawl up to the surface.

It was all wrong. Yumichika's eyes didn't gleam, he didn't speak other than moaning in agony, and his fingers couldn't bend or straighten further, rigor mortis having set in. Ikkaku was certain that his heart was going to explode, going so fast that he brought a hand up to his chest as if it would calm himself down.

No. Yumichika was not alive. He had not 'come to' in some sort of miracle like all those wonderful stories of people awakening from death. Yumichika had not awoken from some sort of drug-induced stupor, some coma.

Yumichika was still dead.

The poor thing seemed to realize that it shouldn't be here, that it was supposed to be somewhere else, in another world. Maybe it still remembered its past life. Maybe it was still Yumichika in there, upset that his life had been cut short and that he had fallen upon such misfortune.

He began to moan and shake, doing something unmistakably human:  _crying._  There were no tears, but he was definitely weeping, pitifully so, clawing at his face with his un-bendable hands in an attempt to wipe his cheeks. Ikkaku was overcome with an urge to comfort him, to talk to him and take him home, to take care of him as if he were sick and not undead. His hand dropped, recoiling from what he knew was a dead body.

This wasn't right. Yumichika had to get back in that grave.

He told Yumichika this, but the man shuddered slightly, moaning loudly in pain, raising his stiff arms to protect his crumpled face. Ikkaku touched him then, feeling the cold clammy skin and the jerking limbs. "Come on… It's time for bed," he said softly with uncertainty, leading Yumichika across the graveyard, back to his resting place. Yumichika became more agreeable when they came closer to his grave, as if it was extremely uncomfortable to be away from it. He must have gotten lost. "Uh… I'll help you," Ikkaku offered, jogging over to where he'd dropped his shovel, bringing it back to the place where Yumichika was still standing.

Yumichika's body lacked the motor skills to be able to talk back to him, but his face still moved stiffly, showing Ikkaku his fear and pain, his confusion. Yumichika seemed to understand him when he talked, so he just chatted with him, trying to drive away his own nervousness. This adrenaline rush was going to knock him out if he wasn't careful. He was feeling quite light-headed. He'd always thought it was ridiculous when people fainted at bad news, but maybe it really could happen to him too if this kept up. Ikkaku just patted Yumichika's arm for a little while and then dug up the soft dirt that was in a pile where Yumichika had clawed his way out of his casket.

Yumichika swayed a little and fell back against a tree trunk, sinking to the ground with a whine as he tried to speak, saying sluggishly that he was hurting, or maybe he had said  _haunting_. There was an audible creaking noise when his stiff legs were forced to bend. Ikkaku's heart was still pounding so hard, not knowing whether this was an extremely demented dream, or a demented reality. He stood on his tip toes to make sure Yumichika was still there, and then leaned back down to brush the dirt off the top of Yumichika's coffin, seeing that the steel latch had been broken right off. He opened up the lid with some difficulty and led Yumichika over to it.

Even though Yumichika had been relieved to have been brought back to his grave, he didn't want to get inside, shaking his head jerkily. He tried to walk away from it, but Ikkaku didn't let him, getting a little choked up. As much as he wanted Yumichika to stay in this world with him here, even as a zombie, he knew that this wasn't right, that this was against nature.

"C'mon," he said gently, realizing that there were tears in his eyes. He coaxed Yumichika over to him with a comforting tone, convincing him that he just needed to lay back down inside his coffin and close his eyes.

He made himself kiss Yumichika's mangled face, heart aching as he helped him lay down inside his nice little bed, tucking him in and stroking his hair for a while. Even so broken and scary-looking, Yumichika was still beautiful to Ikkaku. When Yumichika had finally settled down, Ikkaku felt the clammy hands of an unmistakably dead body slide into his. He held the brittle immovable fingers, feeling the two stiff palms trying to hold him back. Yumichika was breathing, but it was slowing down, little whines coming from between his lips.

Ikkaku pet his forehead a little, hushing him when he cried softly, trying to sit back up. Yumichika didn't want to die; he didn't want to be dead anymore than Ikkaku did. Ikkaku cringed, but kissed Yumichika's forehead and told him he loved him, telling him that he had to do this, that he needed to be brave.

"It's time for bed… Just go to sleep," he whispered. "It's all a bad dream… Just go to sleep, darlin'." Ikkaku really tried to be comforting, stroking his hair, trying to make Yumichika feel at ease. Yumichika nodded jerkily and lay back, eyelids sticking a little each time he tried to blink, staring back at Ikkaku dazedly as if he were afraid of him disappearing.

"Ssss…" Yumichika forced out of his stiff jaw with great effort, and suddenly Ikkaku realized that he was breathing out of reflex, not because he was really taking in oxygen. Talking might've been a social instinct too, but Yumichika's tongue probably couldn't move precisely enough for any real talking.

"Sst... Ssnk."

"Ya' want me to sing to ya'?" Ikkaku guessed. Yumichika let out a ragged breath, half-coughing.

Ikkaku wasn't a good singer, but he wasn't bad either, so he pet Yumichika's hair, singing to him in a quiet whispery tone. The thunder had gone away now, and the wind had quieted down.

"Sing me to sleep… Sing me to sleep… I'm tired… and I… want to go to bed..." Yumichika's mouth moved a tiny bit, just a muscle fiber that hadn't agreed to die just yet. Ikkaku didn't like how hopeless his own voice sounded. "Sing to me... sing to me… and then leave me alone…" Yumichika's fingers twitched, and Ikkaku cut off, choked up.

"Don't try to wake me in the morning," he gasped, gritting his teeth as a wave of despair flooded over him, spilling out his eyes a little as he clutched Yumichika's hands. He loved him. Oh, how he had loved Yumichika. He didn't want to say goodbye.

"Cause' I will be gone," he choked out with a quiet sob. Yumichika had grown very still, blinking slowly, staring back up at him. Even with all those horrific wounds, Yumichika still looked as beautiful as Ikkaku remembered.

Ikkaku's lips were trembling, but he kept going, "Don't feel bad for me… I want you to know… Deep in the cell of my heart, I really want to go…"

Yumichika's chest was barely moving, but his lips moved a little as he was lulled to a dazed sleep, eyes still half open. "I feel so glad… to go..." Ikkaku cried, wiping his eyes as he began weeping bitterly, a shaking hand over his mouth as he watched Yumichika die. "I don't want to wake up… on my own anymore…" Ikkaku cut off, bringing a hand up to his mouth as he kept from sobbing, nearly choking himself in the process. He clung to Yumichika's hands, as if he could keep him here just a little longer if he held him tight.

"There is another world…" he whispered, tears falling down onto Yumichika's unflinching face. He was so beautiful, so pale and perfect like Snow White. Ikkaku didn't want to part from him or stop looking upon him. He didn't want this to be the end.

"There is a better world… bye… bye…"

Eventually the breaths grew slower and more shallow, and whatever had animated Yumichika's corpse finally left, leaving him truly as the dearly departed, leaving Ikkaku holding the hands of an empty body.

"Sweet dreams, sleepin' beauty," Ikkaku whispered, eyes wet, knowing that Yumichika was gone and that he couldn't hear him. Even if that were true, he felt that it would make himself feel better to pretend that Yumichika was still with him, following him around and listening to his problems.

Ikkaku pried his hands out of the stiff fixated grip and forced Yumichika's arms down. He crawled back out of the pit, closing the lid of the casket with a heavy heart, tossing in a flower on top of the coffin. Then he got to work shoveling the dirt back in, being sure to pack it in tight this time. Ikkaku decided to plant lupins around here, lilies, roses, lavender, and other outrageously fragrant flowers. He would make sure that butterflies would visit this spot and give Yumichika little kisses each day.

He wandered around and got another roll of sod, laying it on top of the wet ground, sealing the rectangle of earth. It looked as if nothing had happened, as if the door to the underworld had never been opened. He thought of it as wrapping paper on a present, keeping all the contents perfectly contained inside the cardboard box.

Then he curled up on the soft grass he'd just laid down, sleeping above Yumichika where he would rest forever, slowly turning into bones and then dust. He would sleep here and keep watch tonight. Yumichika had seemed scared, and Ikkaku wouldn't leave him alone. Besides, he didn't want any freelance photographers coming in here looking to disturb Yumichika's rest either.

He lay there, adrenaline finally dying, wishing that he could die along with it, along with Yumichika, and lay here forever with him. The forest seemed to sigh, and the crows finally quieted down. As he lulled himself to sleep, he noticed that his eyes were still leaking and that the dark wasn't so scary anymore.

It was beautiful, like Yumichika's soft shiny hair. Even knowing that he'd never see it or touch it again, Ikkaku felt that some of the pain in his heart had been put to rest here where Yumichika lay sleeping.

"Good night," Ikkaku murmured.

* * *

 _No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone_  
_No more calling like a crow, for a boy, for a body in the garden._


	3. Chapter 3

_There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep_   
_Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks_   
_Then it walks, then it walks with my legs_   
_To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet_

* * *

"Nice place," Renji commented, following Ichigo around as they wandered the grounds. Ichigo shrugged, keeping his distance, still seeming a little antsy after seeing Renji's reaction to what had happened to him.

Although this was all stunning and disturbing to Renji, he let it go, seeing that Ichigo didn't want to - and  _couldn't_  - talk about it. After he was ignored the first few times, Renji stopped asking what had happened to him.

To be honest, it did freak Renji out. He could admit that his surprise had been akin to revulsion. Seriously,  _holy crap,_  Ichigo had had his tongue cut out and it looked so disgusting that it hurt to look at, but Renji saw how ashamed Ichigo looked and kicked himself for being selfish. Ichigo could never be gross to him, the poor guy. Renji would always love him, even if looking at that had made him throw up in his mouth a little.

What bothered him more was why he was like this in the first place. It bugged him like there was a fist clenching around his heart, puncturing it with sharp nails.  _Who had hurt Ichigo?_

As they paused in front of a crumbling side building that had some complicated designs for the windows, Ichigo stood there, waiting for Renji to get done looking at the place. When he looked up, he realized that Renji had been staring at him the whole time. He let out a noise of frustration, glaring at him, turning hostile.

Even though Renji had been given quite the scare by seeing Ichigo's wound, he was still completely dreamy and lovestruck, extremely excited that he'd found Ichigo again. It was almost impossible to focus on the job he was supposed to be trying to get. Ichigo just glared at him meanly, looking bitter, like he knew just how grossed out Renji had been by seeing what had happened to him. It was that expression he'd always worn in the past when Ichigo's feelings were hurt. Renji suddenly felt like he'd killed a butterfly.

"Fff," Ichigo spat, clearly meaning to swear at him. He crossed his arms, scowling, starting away from Renji in a huff. Renji followed behind, trying to grab his hand and hold it like he'd always used to. Ichigo made an angry noise and hit him pretty hard, shoving him back. Renji looked back at him in horror. Ichigo had used to be able to hit him hard enough to knock him over. What had happened to him? He was so thin…

Ichigo must've seen the horrified look on Renji's face and mistaken it for pity, because he looked ready to strangle him.

"You… You b-" Ichigo was pissed, steam practically coming from his ears as he half-groaned half-screamed. He couldn't call Renji names anymore. Hell, he couldn't even really say Renji's real name anymore. Ichigo just grew more infuriated and upset, obviously wanting to go into a tirade like he always had in the past.

"Don't curse at me, young man," Renji teased, and Ichigo sighed roughly, all the anger fading out of him in one fell swoop. Renji watched in concern as Ichigo's shoulders slumped, but then Ichigo gave a reluctant smile, leading them back to the house.

Renji's heart was aching. Ichigo was mad at him. He didn't care about him anymore and reviled in his touch. He'd been prepared for this the moment he realized he'd found Ichigo, of course, but it still hurt. He'd known that Ichigo had left him, and that just being near him like this was beyond his wildest dreams. He'd thought that he'd never see Ichigo again. It wasn't right to be selfish. Renji could live with this. At least he knew that Ichigo was safe and alive. Still, the thought that something so horrible had happened to Ichigo was... unsettling, to say the least.

Who had hurt him? Why had they done this to him? Had Ichigo known something that they were trying to keep quiet? Maybe they'd just wanted to keep him from talking, but then why wouldn't they have just killed him instead? Were they keeping him alive on purpose? The worst thing out of all these bad thoughts was that Renji got the horrible feeling that he was at fault somehow. It would make sense why Ichigo would hate him so much.

He blinked when Ichigo made an impatient noise. He must've drifted off. Ichigo was making a 'come on' motion. Renji followed promptly, glad that Ichigo had actually bothered to wait for him instead of just ditching him out here.

"You sure it's okay to show me the inside? I mean, it's okay if ya' can't… I mean, I know I'm supposed to be working outside and… you know me, a classless idiot." Ichigo rolled his eyes, and Renji could almost hear a scathing sarcastic remark like it had been spoken aloud.

Ichigo had always had that controlled scowl of his in the past, but now that he couldn't use his words, his face had become an open book. Renji liked being able to know how he was feeling at least. "Don't get yourself in trouble," he said in concern, really not wanting to give Ichigo another reason to have a vendetta against him.

Ichigo rolled his eyes again with a scoff, and Renji was reminded that Ichigo somehow had a higher status as a servant and was permitted to wander around the house freely. "Ya' really wanna' go in?"

Ichigo nodded, and Renji cringed, unaccustomed to Ichigo being so silent. He was used to hearing insults and complaints, rudeness to authoritative adults, or just plain yelling. But no, Ichigo had been shamed into silence, and probably had been for years now. It was almost like a little part of him had died.

Renji was beckoned through the back door into a little servant's kitchen. There were white and black tiles on the ground, crackling plaster on the walls, and the cupboard doors looked ready to fall off. Renji would have no shortage of jobs, it seemed. Ichigo pointed at the cracks and looked back at him significantly, indicating that he should fix that later. Then he opened a cupboard door under the sink and pointed at a leaky pipe that had a bucket underneath it to catch drips. Then he pointed to the flickering light bulb.

"I'll get right on that." Ichigo nodded and beckoned him out. Luckily, the rest of the house wasn't in that state of disrepair, and was overly lavish and fancy like a mansion should be. Renji almost didn't want to follow, in case he tracked mud on the expensive carpets. There were high ceilings and chandeliers, candle-holders on the walls, and vases and knickknacks so impractical that they could only be decorations.

As he was led around, he saw many weird individuals giving him glances. There was a pink-haired man who eyed him with interest, yanking off some rubber gloves, and licking his lips suggestively. Ichigo just pulled Renji along, away from the peeping eyes. Renji nearly ran into a maid as they rounded the corner.

Ichigo made an apologetic expression, holding his hands out to her to try to keep the porcelain glassware on her tray from falling. The woman just smiled, saying that she was fine. She hadn't dropped any of the expensive tea-set she was carrying, even though she'd been quite startled. Lucky. Her hair was strawberry blonde, and she had an insane bust-line. For some reason, Renji got a sad vibe from her, even though she was very cheery.

"Sorry, Miss." He tipped his head even though he wasn't wearing a hat.

"It's okay, handsome," she winked, handing him a cookie. Renji grinned and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth at once. Ichigo glanced at him skeptically, sharing a glance with the maid.

Ichigo led him onward, past fancy cases filled with murderabilia, music boxes, glass animals and eggs, and lots of old books. The wallpaper had little golden detailings on it, and the only thing Renji could see that might be creepy about the place was the strange layout, the many doors, and the smell. It smelled like rust, or was that blood? Hm, it was probably just the smell of an old house.

"So how long ya' been workin' here?" he asked uncertainly. Ichigo held up three fingers. It was as Renji suspected. He'd started working here right after leaving him.

Ichigo beckoned him to follow again and led him back down to the small kitchen, where he sat down at the rickety table with a small sigh, looking back up at Renji. Renji approached doubtfully. "Hey… Ichigo, I… I still-"

"There ya' are. Was lookin' for ya', hot stuff." Ichigo didn't exactly freeze, but he went very still and quiet. Renji cut off, looking up at a guy wearing nice clothes and with shocking bright blue hair who'd just walked into the room, coming down the side-staircase. "I'm gonna' be busy tonight, so I just wanted some sugar."

Ichigo immediately got up and went down on one knee in front of him. The guy rubbed Ichigo's hair a little and let him get up, kissing the side of his face. Ichigo accepted it graciously. "Oh hey," the man said in surprise, glancing at Renji, jamming a thumb in his direction. "Who'z'is?"

Ichigo pursed his lips, not looking at Renji, who was horrified and heart-broken. He whipped a little notepad out of his back pocket, scribbling something down and showing it to Grimmjow, who took a second to read the barely legible writing.

"W… A worker? Ah." Grimmjow nodded to Renji, who promptly introduced himself and held out a hand. Grimmjow shook it, explaining that he was one of Aizen-sama's 'tenants', whatever that meant. "Ya' settlin' in fine?" Renji nodded. "Good. Ya' met Ichigo too?" Renji nodded again, explaining that Ichigo had been showing him the grounds.

Ichigo didn't look up at Renji out of what seemed like shame as he stood next to Grimmjow silently, letting the man put an affectionate arm around his shoulder. Renji felt like he was bleeding inside, looking at the man that he assumed Ichigo had left him for. He was rich, and handsome, and nice... Renji felt this jealous fire start scorching his ribcage, and part of him suddenly thought that Grimmjow looked psychotic. It was just the feeling he got, although the guy didn't show any indications that he was a violent person.

"Mm, good," Grimmjow said again, looking at Ichigo, who was in his arms. Renji suddenly thought that he looked like a pimp or something. He could just be a rich guy, but it might not be a coincidence that Ichigo had left him for a rich guy when they'd been dirt poor. Had Ichigo gotten desperate for money? Grimmjow pinched Ichigo's cheek until he smiled.

"You're so pretty, I wanna' punch you right in the face." Renji wrinkled his nose. That was some strange sentimentality, but Ichigo seemed to like it, because he was smiling, looking half-embarrassed as if that had simply been romantic banter.

Grimmjow puffed out his cheeks and blew a raspberry on Ichigo's face. Ichigo laughed a little without using his voice, pushing him away some, not succeeding in breaking out of Grimmjow's arms. Renji looked down at his feet, trying to keep his broken heart together.

Ichigo wasn't his anymore, but that was okay. He could live with this even if Ichigo was with someone else, as much as it killed him. At least Ichigo was alive. He could live with this, watching Ichigo share those happy moments they'd had with someone else.

But  _damn,_ did it hurt.

"Go'wan' up an' show him where he'll be sleepin', kitten." Ichigo nodded, and then Grimmjow grinned affectionately, seeming to be groping him a little, although Renji couldn't see from the angle he was at. Ichigo didn't blush like Renji remembered him doing; he merely rolled his eyes and gave Grimmjow the finger. Grimmjow bit at it, and Renji barely contained a scream, chest tightening up as he put a hand over his face, trying to compose himself. Maybe he'd let some strangled noise escape, because it grabbed Ichigo's attention.

He could hardly breathe, still trying to force that scream down. Renji was seriously ready to throw up. Ichigo was tapping his arm, but he didn't answer, just covering his face completely with both hands, tightened up all over, hardly able to think straight through his heartache. He had to get it together. He'd known that something like this was a possibility, and he had to accept it. Ichigo had left him years ago, of  _course_  he would have met someone else by now.

"Rem," Ichigo said, growing desperate to get his attention, shoving Renji a little when he didn't respond. Renji looked up out of surprise, seeing that Grimmjow was looking intrigued as well. It was so good to hear Ichigo's voice, even when it was so warped. Ichigo turned red, but made another little noise along with a 'follow me' signal, and Renji did, not making eye contact with the smiling rich guy who waved at them and left the room.

Renji had been talking to Ichigo before, filling the silence between them, and Ichigo had seemed to enjoy his chatter, but now he was quiet and brooding, stuck back in the swirling of his never-ending depression and gloom. It had come back like a tidal wave, full force, almost twice as bad as before. The little light in the distance, being able to see Ichigo again... it didn't seem like enough to save him from his demons. He needed Ichigo in his life again; he needed a chance to fix things, or he would be haunted forever. Even if it wouldn't change anything, he had to say this. He had to apologize like he had waited to do for years.

Ichigo eventually showed him his new room, which was bigger than their entire apartment from back when they'd lived together. However, the place was rather spartan when it came to actual furniture. It was mostly empty, but had a large bed, which Renji was suspicious had bugs inside of. There was a grimy window and he noticed that the far corner of the room was crooked. The closet door was open. It was all rather yellowed and creepy, but he was pleased all the same. He mumbled that he had to go back to his car to get his stuff and tried to step around Ichigo, but was stopped when the man put a hand on his wrist.

Renji stopped, not turning around, noticing how close the two of them were now that they were standing in the doorway.

"I," Ichigo said, stopping nearly right away when it was clear that his voice was horribly warped. He rolled his eyes, looking a little embarrassed, but Renji looked back, telling him that he could talk and that he wouldn't laugh. He realized with a jolt that Ichigo wouldn't be able to say his own name anymore. The way Ichigo arranged his mouth made it almost sound normal, but it was still horrible for Renji to listen to, to hear how crippled his speech had become. Ichigo knew that he sounded mentally-challenged, and it hurt Renji's heart to see him so humiliated.

"Rem-vi, I'm reawy' 'orry fer'… uh," Ichigo said clumsily, voice very quiet and hesitant. He didn't meet Renji's eyes, ashamed and shy to talk to him, maybe afraid that Renji would laugh or think less of him. Renji suddenly got the feeling that Ichigo didn't even attempt talking to anyone else, always staying silent to avoid sounding like a fool. After all, that rich guy had been surprised just to hear him say a single syllable. Maybe Grimmjow only got to hear his voice when he was fucking him. Renji's heart wrenched just thinking about it.

"Fer'... um," Ichigo stuttered, trying to think of a word that he could actually say. "R'... we-" he cut off, frustrated. "Ff," he swore, lip protruding as he looked at the ground, obviously ashamed and upset with himself.

"It's okay." Renji just looked back at him, lifting a hand up to his cheek, running his fingers down his neck and over his shoulder with a wistful sigh. Ichigo nodded hesitantly. Renji looked back at him, glad for the small bit of acceptance.

"What happened to you?" he asked, not expecting an answer. He ran a hand over Ichigo's face again, thumb just barely brushing the corner of his lips, and to his surprise, Ichigo let him. "I'm so sorry you were hurt," he mumbled, eyes lowering. Ichigo shrugged, seeming to have an aversion to looking at him as well.

"I'm a'righ," Ichigo mumbled, and Renji resisted the urge to hug him once again as Ichigo finally fully met his gaze. He found that he couldn't look away as their brown eyes met, Ichigo's a lighter glowing amber color, Renji's dark, like chocolate. Renji swallowed hard, realizing how close they were getting. As he looked at those soft lips of Ichigo's, he flicked his eyes back up, and at that moment as he thought about leaning in to give him a kiss, he realized that he loved Ichigo enough that he would die for him without a second thought. He really would die for him.

Ichigo's eyes were closing and he was letting Renji lean in even closer, enough that he could feel their breaths rebounding between them. "Ichigo, I…" Ichigo's eyes flicked up to him and his thin hands were sliding up to Renji's shoulders, and just as Renji was considering leaning all the way in, there came a loud annoying alarm, startling them enough that they narrowly missed hitting each other in the face.

Renji took his phone out of his pocket, and suddenly their trance was broken. Ichigo became distant and almost shy again, keeping a space between them as Renji answered it. After a quick conversation with his senpai, he was left devastated with the news.

"Wha'... Wha' happim'?" Ichigo asked, seeing how drastically Renji's mood had changed.

"He's dead," he said, and even in his own ears it sounded dull, unreal. His vision was starting to tunnel, nothing around him getting through other than the sharp sting of the loss.

Ichigo looked at him in concern as Renji swayed on his feet, putting a hand up against the wall, still staring at the phone screen even though it had gone black.

"He's  _dead,_ " Renji repeated hollowly, the familiar pain of losing Rukia and then Ichigo coming back hard. Yumichika too... just _dead._

"Who?"

"Yumichika-senpai... Yumichika... No, it can't be true."

As he stood there shaking, Ichigo slowly reached a hand out and patted his back, eventually taking him into his thin arms, holding him as he mourned Ayasegawa Yumichika. Even as he moaned into his hands, he found that the tears wouldn't come out no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much he cried.

"He's gone… They're just  _gone_."

The stupid pretty brat and his funny ray-of-sunshine boyfriend were just another scrap of goodness that had been taken away from him.

The sun in Renji's world was going out, and he didn't think he could live in this darkness that took everything, this dark world where he would always hesitate at the last moment, always looking at the moon but never being able to grab it.

* * *

_His eyes are going purple but he can't break away_   
_having not even noticed his brothers dying day_

_Unable to cry_

_The angels didn't take him, was there time for him to pray?_   
_This life was never his, should he go, should he stay..._

_Maybe he should die._

* * *

Telling Renji had been horrible. The guy hadn't even been able to speak. Ikkaku had had to just listen to him breathing, hearing the guy's voice break even though he wasn't saying anything. When he'd hung up, Ikkaku knew that he probably had that horrible, blank, shocked expression on his face, the same he'd had when his almost-sister Rukia had been killed in a train accident.

He'd just broken Renji's heart, and he knew it. He hadn't even gotten a chance to ask how his new job was going or if the owner was creepy. That didn't matter anymore. There was nothing left now that Yumichika was gone. Only emptiness and gaping holes were left behind.

Ikkaku sighed. At least he was glad that Renji got phone reception up on that godforsaken hill.

He walked along the edge of the woods, which was on the far border of the cemetery, stretching around the back end and the right side, which meant there was no real fencing. Ikkaku had been stomping around and fixing up the graves along the edges of the property, moping to himself as he thought about last night.

The only reason that he was certain that it wasn't a dream, was that there was sod over the place where Yumichika lay. When he'd first buried him, he'd left the place muddy so that he could distinguish it from other unmarked burial plots. He'd tied a purple ribbon around the crappy white cross so that he could find it again if he wanted, and he didn't anymore.

Somehow it was more scary to him now than it was then, at the time. It had been more saddening then than anything. He'd meant to go put a piece of wood and some candles by Yumichika's resting place, but he'd since become too chicken, completely averse from going anywhere near the area. He'd sung a zombie to sleep for God's sake.

As much as it freaked him out, it didn't stop him from glancing in that direction every few minutes, even though he was so far away from it that it was out of sight. It gave him the creeps, like someone was watching him or something.

Just thinking that made all the hairs rise on his neck, and he set down his chisel on the stone he'd been working on. He looked back over in its general direction once again. It was a rare sunny day, where rays of golden sunshine were breaking through the clouds and making the ground look like the ocean or the floor of a swimming pool, what with its beautiful moving shadows.

There was a flash of gold in the distance, perhaps light bouncing off a prism, but it was moving too much to be normal. Ikkaku blinked, moving a little, eyes narrowing. It was gone as quick as it had come. He shrugged, hesitantly getting back to work in the shade of the woods. He felt sorry for himself, miserable, pathetic; he just wanted to mope for a while.

It was better for him to be scared of that place, because if he was scared he couldn't be sad, he couldn't be depressed over Yumichika dying and never being able to come back. He didn't want to cry anymore, even if Yumichika deserved his tears and grief. Ikkaku just didn't feel ready to commit suicide, so he tried to think of other things, like how creepy the whole situation was. He'd  _sung_  to a  _zombie_.  _Yumichika's zombie_ _._

As he scraped lichen and moss off a headstone, clearing it so that the dates were legible, he stood it up again, wandering around to find other old markers that had been knocked over. Their owners would spin in their graves, they wouldn't sleep well with their resting places in disrepair.

Ikkaku sighed, sitting down in the grass, laying back to enjoy the shade, despite the mosquitoes coming from the woods. It was an unnaturally warm day, and he'd become accustomed to the rainy weather, so he lay there in the shadows, enjoying the cool relief.

He heard something. He sat up a little, propped up on his elbows. There weren't any birds around today at all. Everything was pleasant and cheerful, what with the sun shining through in little golden pockets, the flowers waving happily in the breeze, and the butterflies flitting around.

Suddenly he twitched, head turning automatically as he picked up on some nearly inaudible noise. What had made that sound? It sounded similar to wind, but… there was something distinctly unsettling about it. It was like he wasn't physically hearing it, but was still being made aware of its presence.

Suddenly he saw it again, the shimmering gold wave of light, as if a silky piece of sheer fabric was being blown gently over something, almost like a veil. It was moving closer, twinkling golden in the sun. As it moved towards him through the shadows, it turned smoky, wispy, almost a greyish-blue cloud of mist.

The moment it entered the shade where he was laying, he scrambled back, seeing the unmistakable shape of a hand form in front of him.

He watched, voice caught in his throat as he saw something struggling to step into the shade, as if it was trying to rip through some sort of plastic barrier. The moment it did, he saw a foot burst through the smoke, a transparent foot… oh no.

Ikkaku crawled back frantically, heart pounding overtime, worse than last night. Last night he'd been overcome by grief and loneliness and had first mistaken the dead body for an alive one. This time when he saw Yumichika's dead face, he screamed.

Yumichika looked surprised, stumbling back into the sunlight, falling on his butt. There was a loud hissing noise as the form became almost invisible, cringing and curling up on the grass. Ikkaku struggled to see what had happened, only seeing tiny flashes of golden light, maybe an outline to Yumichika's form. It was hard to tell.

He almost got up and ran when he saw Yumichika struggle to crawl back into the shade, transparent form becoming more easily visible. Ikkaku could hard move, breaths coming quickly and choppily as he got up, backing away, hands out in front of him as if someone had pointed a gun at him.

"Don't… don't come near me," he said stupidly, as if he thought he would die if he was touched by a wraith. Yumichika drifted upwards, stepping towards him, and Ikkaku looked into the transparent face, the almost solid face of the man who had once been so beautiful.

He was still beautiful. It was still Yumichika. He was suddenly struck with the thought that he should say something to him. "Yu-" Ikkaku stuttered, torn as to whether he should tear ass out of there or wait around to try to communicate with whatever this was.

Yumichika's wispy form was somehow more terrifying to look at than his grisly corpse. It was really scaring Ikkaku badly, the impossibility of it all getting to him worse than it had before. It seemed more real this time, to see a dead person in the light where nothing could be hidden. At night, he could pretend it was a dream or that it didn't matter, that it was some freak occurrence, that it wasn't real.

As Ikkaku looked back, he saw that Yumichika had no wounds this time. He was  _beautiful_ , stupefying even in a bluish mist, a foggy smoky substance that didn't even seem real, like a rainbow or a shadow. Ikkaku watched the creature drop to its knees in despair or pain, skin flaking off in big patches as it clutched at its chest, head bowing forward. It reminded him of the tree nymph from that Fantasia movie after she had been burned alive, so limp and broken, dried up and weak.

Yumichika was still trying to crawl to him, one hand gripping his heart as the other one was outstretched, trying to dig into the ground. The grass moved just a tiny bit, as if Yumichika still had some sort of hold on this world, but not enough to do anything serious. That freaked Ikkaku out pretty bad, and he almost screamed again when he could see that there was a human outline in the grass where Yumichika was splayed.

His silvery shimmering hair was blocking his face, and Ikkaku thought that maybe Yumichika was coughing, but he couldn't hear anything. It was too sunny, too fresh and cheery for something like this to be happening. Ikkaku wanted rain, he wanted gloom and clouds, something to match his dark frightened mood.

This was a ghost; he was sure of it. It was real,  _real_ , right in front of him. He couldn't be dreaming or hallucinating, even though he did miss Yumichika enough that maybe his mind might make something like this up. Somehow he knew that this was really happening, and it made Ikkaku want to wet himself. He'd killed Yumichika, and now he was being haunted. As the spirit got to its feet, it seemed to go through a great effort, reaching out towards him, seeming to become clearer all the time. Ikkaku took a step back, and to his horror, Yumichika stumbled as if that step had been like a bullet to the gut.

Yumichika took another step closer, and this time Ikkaku moved one foot back, body tensed and ready to bolt. Yumichika's mouth was moving, but still Ikkaku could not hear, eyes on Yumichika's face, wishing like hell that Yumichika could just come back to life, that he wasn't stuck as some phantom. Maybe this was his punishment for causing Yumichika's death. Maybe Yumichika was here to torture and scare him. He didn't want to be haunted.

Ikkaku was scared out of his wits, but something kept him rooted to the spot. Some part of him wanted to still have some sort of link to Yumichika, even if this vision was going to haunt him and drive him insane. Yumichika almost looked solid now, but there was no color, no peachiness to his skin. He was grey, silvery, blue-ish, and Ikkaku could still see through him even though he was less transparent than before.

Yumichika stumbled a little, looking exhausted, but kept speaking, trying to make Ikkaku hear him. Eventually, he resorted to what looked like screaming. Suddenly, Ikkaku heard him as if he was a great distance away, but in a horror-wracked, haunting, gut-wrenching howl that couldn't belong to Yumichika. It sounded like a demon, a shrieking haunted spectre.

When Yumichika stopped, so did the howling, and then, nearly collapsing, Yumichika broke through whatever he was struggling against. Ikkaku could hear his voice as clear as day.

Ikkaku looked at him blankly, shaking all over, hardly able to stand. Yumichika looked back, testing it out again, taking a hesitant step as if he was trying to keep his balance, as if he wasn't stepping on anything at all, like he was hanging over nothing but could see grass that didn't support him. He looked down at the ground and up to Ikkaku's face many times before taking another step, foot sinking below the ground's level. He quickly corrected himself with a frustrated noise, this time finding support an inch above the tips of the grass. Maybe he was still getting used to floating.

"Why are you frightened?" Yumichika asked curiously, voice wispy and ethereal, still having the sound of the living Yumichika but blending with another tone that Ikkaku guessed was multi-dimensional.

He couldn't answer, couldn't speak, couldn't even blink. He felt like a little kid lying terrified in bed, thinking that the moment they moved, the monster would get them.

Yumichika stuck out a hand, and Ikkaku took a step back reflexively. He swiped for him again, and again Ikkaku stepped back. "You can really see me," Yumichika said suddenly, looking surprised even though he knew that he was the reason Ikkaku was so startled. "I saw you but… I didn't think… Oh good, I've made it. I've really made it, I've manifested myself… They were trying to make me go," he whispered, floating around Ikkaku in a little circle, no longer bothering with trying to make it look like he was walking on the ground.

Ikkaku was clutching at his own body now, clenched up and terrified. As much as he wished that this was Yumichika, he couldn't help how afraid he suddenly was, as if all the panic of last night had been put off until this moment. Maybe ghosts just had this power to frighten people out of their wits; at least Ikkaku hoped so, because he didn't want to be a total wimp even though no one was here to see this.

"S… Stop, get away!" he shouted, clamping his hands over his head, bending over in a protective stance. "Don't touch me, get away!"

"I'm not all the way through… You must hear screaming still," Yumichika said thoughtfully, seeming to test an invisible boundary, becoming a mite clearer once again. He looked almost solid now, and Ikkaku could only see through him when he moved. "I'm not going to possess you, you know. I thought you weren't a coward… Madarame Ikkaku. Have you forgotten me already? Surely you remember my face? Do you see some ghoul with a sheet on its head? Can't you hear me?" Yumichika said with a desperate note in his voice, trying to get Ikkaku to say  _something._

Ikkaku looked up, and Yumichika was standing - or maybe floating - right in front of him. Yumichika had always been shorter than him, but here he was at eye level, still so beautiful.

Ikkaku was suddenly overcome by grief which he had never felt a likeness to before. He was choked up and broken, reaching out a hand, wanting so badly to grab Yumichika and kiss him. He wanted to touch him, but he knew that if he tried, his fingers wouldn't feel anything, and he couldn't bear the disappointment. That didn't stop him from trying, and that was what was upsetting him. His eyes were prickling and his lip quivered, but still he held out his hand, bravery returning a little.

Yumichika watched him, maybe not seeing that he was reaching for him. Ikkaku tried to touch him, but his fingers went straight through, as he'd expected. Yumichika gave a gasp and a horrible jolt, zipping backwards. Ikkaku snapped his hand back in panic, thinking he was going to be bitten or that he might die now that he'd touched a ghost. It had been so cold and wispy, so… he couldn't describe it. It was as if he'd come inside of a desolate world for just an instant, the ugly grey world where Yumichika now lived with the rest of the dead.

No… Maybe Yumichika wasn't there… Maybe Yumichika's ghost didn't want to leave yet.

He knew what was going on. Something had gone wrong with Yumichika. Something caused him to be unrestful, to want to stay with the living enough to walk forever, dead and unable to join society. Something was keeping him here.

"I remember you," Ikkaku assured, voice sounding foreign in his own ears as he answered Yumichika's ghost. Part of him didn't see Yumichika and this ghost as the same person, but as soon as he came upon that realization, he reminded himself that this was his lost love coming back to talk to him. He should be thankful for this chance.

Yumichika gave a sad smile, cringing and twitching, stepping back a little. Being touched seemed to make him uncomfortable. Yumichika then started curling up, grabbing his own head, hands fisting in his hair. He started muttering to himself, convulsing and walking away, back out into the sunlight. Immediately, Ikkaku couldn't see him anymore, only an outline of glimmering dewdrops, shining in the sun as they moved.

Suddenly, this wasn't a ghost anymore to him. It was Yumichika leaving him,  _again_. No, no, he couldn't let him leave. He couldn't let him get away. Yumichika had to stay. He just couldn't go so soon.

"No, wait!" he shouted desperately, going after the spirit, following him through the boneyard. When they came to stop under a shady tree, he knew exactly what was going on. Yumichika hated straying too far from his grave, and sure enough, there the spectre was, just laying there curled up on top of the shaded grass.

"Yumi… Yumichika," Ikkaku said shakily, reaching out a hand to touch him. Suddenly, just as his fingers reached through the top of Yumichika's head, he burst into a cloud of smoke, wisping out of being. Ikkaku panicked; he admitted it. He had a little heart attack, thinking he'd broken him or something and that he couldn't come back. When he sat down, forlorn and confused, he looked up at a rustling noise and saw Yumichika lounging up in the tree, floating around sadly.

Ikkaku got him to come down, but when he tried to talk to him, he noticed that he couldn't hear anymore. Yumichika lay down in the grass near him, form becoming nondescript, a blurry cloud of mist, and Ikkaku was still staring, heart pounding erratically as he watched Yumichika struggle to break through again.

"You need to get something, maybe one of those radios," Yumichika gasped, clutching at his chest. "It's getting easier to come through, but it's still exhausting. I don't like having to go back to that lake so often."

"Why… Why did you just leave?" Ikkaku asked uncertainly, not knowing if Yumichika could hear him as well. Maybe he was insane and was just talking to nothing, but Yumichika answered him. Who cared if this was a delusion? If this could ease his grief and his longing to have Yumichika back, then who cared if it wasn't real?

"Being away is uncomfortable," Yumichika whispered, voice airy and haunted once more, eyes becoming dark holes. Ikkaku stared as Yumichika form shuddered and warped slightly, flickering between his beautiful appearance and a disfigured grisly ghoul who was tormented by grief. "I need practice. I need to transfer my resting place," he said calmly, fading back to his normal pretty self.

"How?" Ikkaku asked in confusion, getting the feeling that if he asked for a real explanation, Yumichika would just ignore him. For some reason, he knew that if Yumichika thought about his death or the life that had been stolen from him, he would turn into one of those haunted souls. Ikkaku would do anything to help him, whatever he could, even if it was something unpleasant like digging up his body again, which was surely starting to rot by now. "Do you want me ta' dig ya' up?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he whispered, floating around Ikkaku. "I just need to attach onto a-... Wait… Do you hear that?" Ikkaku and Yumichika both listened closely, but Ikkaku assumed that whatever noise Yumichika had heard was on another dimensional plane, because he couldn't hear anything with his normal human ears.

Ikkaku watched as Yumichika's face became frighteningly human, screwing up in fright and despair. "Oh my poor dear… Kaa… Where is Kaa? I hear him… screaming."

Ikkaku didn't bother trying to hide it, even though he knew it might devastate Yumichika. His whole life had been taken away, his youth, his fame and fortune, the man he was going to marry. All of it was gone, and he didn't know if Yumichika would be able to deal with it, but still, the words came out of his mouth easily. "He died."

"He's haunted," Yumichika whispered once, aghast, then repeating it out loud. "He's haunted, I can hear him screaming. Was he murdered?"

"No. He killed himself." Yumichika gave a little gasp.

"Oh, how sad… I wonder why."

Ikkaku knew well enough to keep his mouth shut, watching as Yumichika convulsed and seemed to go back under a layer of glass or plastic, harder to see. The blurred figure held out an arm towards him, and Ikkaku raised his hand, hypnotized by the idea that he may still be able to see Yumichika, that he may still be able to talk to him and love him. Yumichika wasn't gone.

He got up and followed him through the sunny patches again, losing him a few times because of how hard he was to see in the light. Yumichika waited and would circle back when Ikkaku lost him, still holding out a hand for him to take. Eventually Yumichika led him to the edge of the woods, entering it without any hesitation. Ikkaku followed behind, slowlier, since he couldn't float straight through the thick undergrowth and the brambles.

He started hearing it too: horrible haunted screams and howls. Ikkaku had the feeling that Kaa's spirit was too tortured to communicate properly. He had died of grief, after all. When they saw him, Yumichika was right. He was inhuman, a nondescript mass of mist with clawing limbs and black holes for eyes. The voice was haunting and dark, and the being was clutching at its head, just screaming and moaning nonstop. Yumichika still held the thing as black sticky blood practically poured out of its horrible eye sockets. He stroked the crying spirit until they both simply faded away.

Ikkaku rubbed his eyes and left, having a keen sense that Yumichika was following him on his right. When he sat down to regain his breath, Yumichika reappeared and sat next to him, seeming to want to lean up against him, but didn't, probably thinking that Ikkaku was still frightened of him.

"Thank you for putting me to bed last night," Yumichika's trans-dimensional voice said, the last words Ikkaku heard from him as he tried to touch him once more. Like before, his hand went right through Yumichika, turning the ghost into a cloud of mist and smoke, which quickly vanished.

Ikkaku was skittish and on edge for the rest of the day, nearly crawling out of his skin as he finished with work. He spent the rest of the week searching doggedly through the twenty-some antique shops in their little town, and through all of that time, there was something following him, whispering to him and closing doors, playing with light switches and candles. He was being haunted by his late unrequited love's ghost.

He needed to get a fucking Spiricom.

* * *

_Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open_   
_And finally it seemed that the spell was broken  
_ _And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open_


	4. Chapter 4

_Snow White's stitching up your circuit-boards_   
_Someone's slipping through the hidden door_   
_Snow White's stitching up your circuit-board_

* * *

"So are you sure that this thing works?" Ikkaku asked the store clerk, looking to her, trying not to seem intimidating. He was fully aware that his looks could easily scare young women; he'd come from a bad city after all, and he'd long since gotten used to the familiar guilt of seeing them respond to him like he was threatening them.

This girl, though, she was different. She was glancing to him frequently, making hesitant eye-contact, and if Ikkaku didn't know better, he'd say that she might like him a little. That was definitely a step up from seeing girls clutching rape whistles when he walked by. Geez, he didn't even have any  _friends_  that were girls, which sucked because girls are pretty and smell nice.

"Hm? Does it work?" he asked again when she didn't answer immediately. She jolted out of her reverie, shaking her head a little, drawing her eyes away from the corner of the room. Ikkaku's gut clenched up, wondering if she was clairvoyant or something, able to sense the supernatural presence.

"Oh, of course," she assured. "You just put it on and then tune it with that dial until you pick up whatever signals you're looking for." Her hands touched his a little as she demonstrated on the little control pad.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, glancing up to her face. Her name tag read 'Rinnie', and she was very pretty.

"It's awfully ugly," came an unhelpful comment, hopefully about the ghost-box and not the nice girl.

"Ssh," Ikkaku said sharply, glaring at Yumichika who was floating around behind him. He'd been following him through town all afternoon. The girl just looked at Ikkaku strangely, eyebrows pinching a little.

Damnit, Yumichika.  _Fuck_ , it was irritating that Yumichika's stupid attitude just made him love him even more. He was so fucking annoying, but it was what Ikkaku had fallen in love with. The little brat would keep sassing him even beyond the grave.

Ikkaku turned red, frustrated that he was the only one who could see and hear the idiot. He couldn't even yell at Yumichika for embarrassing him without making himself look insane. "Sorry, I'm really sorry, just… I didn't have any coffee this morning," he explained.

She looked like she understood. "Ah, I see." Hm. That hadn't scared her away. Maybe she'd like to be friends with him if he brought her some flowers for this dusty shop.

"Is it okay if I try it out before I buy it?"

"She looks high-maintenance to me, Ikkaku," Yumichika mock-whispered, pissing Ikkaku off pretty bad. Would he just shut up already? "There's no way she'll let you try before you buy." Ikkaku seriously could not believe this. He turned around and gave Yumichika a look, effectively shutting him up for the moment.

Geez, he was just trying to talk to a nice pretty girl for a few minutes. It was almost like Yumichika couldn't stand not being the center of attention, but Ikkaku should've expected that. The guy was a movie star and was obsessed with himself, but Ikkaku could understand him being pissy. Yumichika was dead and he was the only person who could see and talk to him. Besides, Ikkaku might gripe about Yumichika's god-awful domineering attitude, but he fucking loved it all the same.

"Sure, why not," Rinnie said, not seeming to understand how Ikkaku could test it out in the shop. The place didn't have a reputation for being haunted, and Ikkaku wasn't just going to tell strangers that he had his crush's ghost following him around. "It works as a regular radio too. There's an EVP and an EMF, but I don't know how well they work."

"I'll see right now," Ikkaku said casually, noticing the girl just smile after a confused moment. He put the headphones around his neck, turning on the radio, fiddling with the dial as he looked back towards Yumichika to indicate that he should talk so that he could test whether the reception had improved when he put on the headset.

"Don't use that thing on me, it'll probably make me sound ugly," Yumichika complained.

"Just shut up already," Ikkaku muttered, glaring at him.

"Wh- I'm sorry?" The shop clerk asked in confusion and hurt. Ikkaku cringed, shooting a death-glare Yumichika's way. Yumichika just gave him a smug grin that kind of made Ikkaku want to make him eat dirt, the fucking brat.

"Not you, uh... Sorry, Just… talking to myself," Ikkaku mumbled, putting the industrial headphones over his ears and fiddling with the dial on the handheld control box. Besides some static, he quickly tuned in on a clear silent channel.

"Pssh, sure," Yumichika sassed in crystal clear audio quality, rolling his eyes as he fiddled with a snow globe, trying to pick it up. All that happened was that it wobbled a little, the snowflakes puffing up inside the water-filled dome.

"Quit f-" Ikkaku cut himself off in exasperation, trying to ignore Yumichika before he made this poor girl think he was completely insane. Yumichika tried to hide a smile, pretending to ignore him, as if he didn't realize that he was being a little shit. Ikkaku resisted the urge to groan and throw something through the idiot.

By then, Yumichika began playing with a pretty music box with intricate gold painted detailings. He floated at eye-level with the shelf, looking like he was lying on his stomach as he touched the little crank and the little ballerina figurine. The whole box almost fell off the shelf when he tried to pick it up, making a loud clattering noise which startled the girl Ikkaku had been talking to pretty badly.

"Yep, I think this thing works," Ikkaku said hurriedly, glancing over to where Yumichika was so he didn't have to see the surprise and tension on the girl's face. She just stared in that direction warily where the music box had closed, seemingly by itself. Yumichika made a frustrated noise, trying to pick it up again, making it clear that he wanted it.

It shuddered like it was possessed by something evil, scaring the girl nearly out of her wits. She made a little gasp, hand flying up to her mouth.

Then, after a second passed, Ikkaku had to watch in horror as realization came over her face, and she looked back to him and his ghost detecting equipment. He averted his eyes, scowling. Of all the bad luck…  _fuck._

"Ikkaku, can I have this?" Yumichika asked sweetly, putting on his pretty-please face. Ikkaku glared at him, cheeks going pink. He hoped the little bastard was happy, embarrassing him like this. He hadn't wanted to let anyone else in on what he was dealing with, and he hoped he hadn't passed her some bad luck or anything, but he was pretty sure that she'd figured it out.

He glared at Yumichika, but knew better than to say no, knowing that if Yumichika tried to pick it up again himself, it would further confirm the girl's suspicions. Damn, he'd really wanted to make some friends for once, too.

"Here," he said, handing the girl the entire contents of his wallet, hoping that would keep her from following him or asking questions. He was glad to finally be done rooting through these old stores, trying out equipment that was either a scam or too old to work right. He picked up the music box that Yumichika had liked and swiftly left, seeing Yumichika turn to fog out of the corner of his eye.

As thrilled as Ikkaku was about being able to see ghosts and sometimes talk to them and shit, he'd had no idea how fucking annoying that would become. He'd heard Ichigo complain about it for years, and he finally understood why. For most of the day, he'd had the eerie feeling that he was being followed, and sure enough, whenever he passed through the shadows, he could vaguely see a misty form floating somewhere above and behind his left shoulder. He couldn't even go to the bathroom alone anymore.

As he moved through the shadier parts of town, he found himself looking like a complete idiot because of the way he was walking. Whenever he saw some strange ghostly mist from a low-level spirit, he felt a personal duty to stay out of their way rather than walk straight through them. He was starting to get weird looks from people from the way he was arguing back at Yumichika, who would occasionally break through to annoy him while he was trying to talk to the owners of the thrift shops he had frequented.

"You know, it's really annoying for you to talk like that when I'm trying to have a conversation."

"Aw, but I thought you loved the sound of my voice." Ikkaku turned red and waved a hand over his shoulder, going right through Yumichika's floating form. Sure enough, Yumichika gave a noise of upset, hating when Ikkaku forced him to dissipate like that.

"Shut up. Who would like you?" he grumbled lowly, averting his eyes when he saw people staring at him as he walked back through town to the familiar cemetery. "I'm pissed because you keep tricking me into replying to you, and it makes me look crazy!" If Ikkaku could admit it, he'd say that it was because he didn't have enough self control to keep his mouth shut when Yumichika teased him.

"Why would that be?" Yumichika asked curiously, floating upside down in front of him, face hanging dangerously close. Ikkaku stopped dead, swallowing a little and staring at Yumichika's lips.

"Because they can't hear you. They don't  _see_  you." Yumichika made a thoughtful noise.

"I'm on an astral plane. It's a higher state of being." He shrugged, floating back down next to Ikkaku, holding his arm. Yumichika had a hard time walking now for some reason, seeming to still be in some other world, only able to see earth as a strange illusion. When Yumichika's feet touched the pavement, they were hanging over nothing still, so it seemed uncomfortable for the poor ghost to try to walk normally, needing Ikkaku to hold him in place.

Ikkaku shivered and tried to push him off by waving his hands through him. Yumichika always broke apart like mist whenever he did that, reforming in a different place with an angry look on his face. "Oh, would you stop that? I hate when you do that," Yumichika hissed, holding his gut where Ikkaku had touched him.

Ikkaku just glared. " _You_  quit touching  _me_. You don't know how that feels, to have a dead guy's hands on you all the time. I don't like it, so stop."

Yumichika frowned as Ikkaku stepped into the sun, still walking down the sidewalk. "Maybe… maybe I'll just go then," Yumichika said drearily, appearance beginning to warp and change into one of those horrible nightmare demons that were made of nothing but the regrets and despairs that had carried over from their lives.

"Hey, hey, hey, cut that out," Ikkaku said hurriedly, unable to look straight at such horrible blank eyes and that disfigured face. Yumichika smiled sweetly, changing back into his pretty self right away, the blackmailing little brat.

Ikkaku sighed, not looking at him, sometimes able to see the grisly wounds from the accident. "I didn't mean that, it's just… I don't… Why do you keep following me around? Are you haunting me?" he asked almost timidly. "Is that it?"

"Hmmm," Yumichika said cheerily, floating around him lazily as Ikkaku led them across the street through a patch of sun. Of course, Yumichika immediately became impossible to see, causing Ikkaku to freak out a little, stopping in the middle of the road. "I'm right here, stupid." Ikkaku looked towards the voice, still not seeing anything, but able to clearly hear him through that stupid headset.

"Quit disappearing like that or I'll kick your ass."

"You say the sweetest things," Yumichika answered sarcastically as they stepped back onto the shady sidewalk.

Not answering his question, he just kept talking aimlessly. "You're upset that I won't explain anything, right? Being cranky is bad for the skin, Ikkaku. You should take care of it while you still have it."

Ikkaku gave a grunt, still glaring ahead as he walked, noticing that Yumichika  _still_  wasn't answering his questions. "I don't give a fuck about wrinkles."

Yumichika gave an airy sigh, lounging next to him, seeming to be resting on a duvet or something comfortable, propping his head up with a hand. Occasionally, those passing by would go right through him without even noticing, but Yumichika paid them no mind, not even feeling it. Ikkaku wondered why he only dissipated when  _he_  touched him… Weird.

"You can probably see shadows or ghouls everywhere now, right? I've turned you into a spirit beacon by revealing myself to you, and I am sorry," Yumichika said with a mock-yawn. "Anyways, they probably look like blurry mist or something close, am I right?" Ikkaku didn't answer, completely ignoring him, which ticked Yumichika off pretty bad. He practically bristled, but didn't complain about Ikkaku not paying him attention, just being silently offended.

"Those are ghosts that are transitioning between worlds, or they're just strong spirits on the other side of the dimensional rift in the parallel world. Certain people have a higher spirit energy than others, which is why you can see some of them more clearly, and then there's me… I suspect having a sudden death has something to do with it, besides the fact that I chose to come here and reveal myself to a living person. It takes enough effort that it's no wonder why more spirits don't do it..." Ikkaku looked up, crossing the street.

"I fell in love with this world and I don't want to leave it," Yumichika said wearily, seeming to almost fall asleep, head lolling forward. He hadn't been to that lake thing in a few hours. Suddenly, he snapped awake and twitched, grabbing the sides of his head with a horrible gasp.

Ikkaku stopped short and looked at him just in time to see his face warp horribly, flickering almost like some computer glitch. Then his eyes began stretching into horrible black holes that could make Eli Roth puke. "No… no, no, ooohhh," Yumichika moaned, body convulsing, and suddenly Ikkaku heard a deep distant howl coming from some other dimension. "Ahhh, no," Yumichika cried, clawing at his face, the wounds from his accident becoming horribly apparent. His moans got louder, and just as he was nearing screaming volume, Ikkaku noticed with a start that they were in the intersection where Yumichika had been killed.

In tandem with a sharp twitch through Yumichika's body, Ikkaku stopped dead, just watching him convulse, seeing dark iron spikes starting to protrude out of his twisting spine with horrible bone-shattering cracks. Yumichika bent over and coughed, black tar dripping from his eyes and mouth.

And then, Ikkaku heard it, the sound of squealing car tires and the horrible  _whump_ of something big hitting the windshield and shattering it. He nearly threw up when he heard a body flop to the ground.

Yumichika started screaming at the top of his lungs, hardly recognizable anymore, seeming to be trying to block out the noise of his reenacted death.

"No, no, we're going this way, c'mon," Ikkaku said, deathly pale, enough that he was attracting attention from others. It was hard to act oblivious when something like that happened in front of him. "C'mon, we're leaving," he said hurriedly, holding an arm out warily where Yumichika's back was, wanting to hold him and lead him away, but knowing that he would just go right through him if Yumichika didn't choose to follow. Those iron spikes were slowly sliding into Yumichika's back in rhythm with some horrible mantra that was barely audible.

With a gasp, Yumichika tore at his face, pulling it right off and throwing it on the ground with an irritated huff. He shook his head like he was trying to get water off of it, and when he moved his hair out of the way, Ikkaku saw that he was fine again.

"Please don't take me back there," Yumichika said hollowly, taking Ikkaku's hand casually. Ikkaku shivered, feeling cold, misty, almost-solid fingers sliding into his. He decided not to say anything about Yumichika just turning into a nightmare-demon and then ripping his own face off right in front of him, and Yumichika seemed eager to avoid the topic as well.

"It's getting harder to stay here," Yumichika whispered to Ikkaku, who was fiddling with the dial on his communicator, adjusting his headphones. "I need to fully transfer my resting place like I explained before."

"You didn't really explain, actually."

Yumichika just smiled, not saying another word until Ikkaku took him back to the graveyard. Ikkaku sighed. He'd taken to hanging out near that grave more than his own home, but this time Yumichika was drifting towards the funeral home, eyes dark and lonely.

Ikkaku went in and said 'hi' to the receptionist, Cindy, a gloomy girl whose goal in life seemed to be impersonating Lydia Deetz and Wednesday Addams. He made small talk with her about the flower arrangement she was working on, and Ikkaku suggested using fewer dead flowers. She thought they added to the decor, but Ikkaku tried to make her see that having dead flowers at a funeral was in poor taste.

She insisted with a disinterested monotone that their clients would like them better, because they were dead too. Ikkaku argued back that the flowers were really for the corpse's family. Cindy then retorted flatly that no one ever smelled them anyway, so who cared if they were dead.

"Oh, I like her," Yumichika said with a grin, floating close to her shoulder, touching a couple flower petals and thistles. He leaned down further to smell them, cupping his hands around them. "She's right, I can smell these better."

"That's why I picked them, now shoo," she replied, causing Ikkaku to stop dead and stare at her. Yumichika just looked at her curiously, putting a hand in front of her face to see if she really could see him. She tipped up her chin and looked right at him, which caused him to frown and wave his hand a little, moving to a different spot. Her eyes followed him to his amazement, and then she leaned right in and tried to bite his finger.

"What?" she asked, going on to ignore the both of them. Eventually Ikkaku just shook his head, mumbling about how his life was a nuthouse. Then he took his own lunch, going to eat in the back room. Yumichika kept floating over his shoulder, occasionally getting so close that Ikkaku would lean away.

"You know, it's weird, but I think I'm starting to be okay about you being dead. Like seriously, I could live with this, no problem. Is that fucked up?"

"Can I have some?" Yumichika practically begged, ignoring him, staring at the honey bun Ikkaku was eating. Ikkaku almost expected the pastry to burst into flames from the intensity that he was looking at it with. "Please?" Ikkaku held out the food and Yumichika floated closer, pretending to take a bite of it, actually chewing and swallowing.

"Can you even taste it?"

"Yes." Yumichika tried to hold Ikkaku's arm still, making his wrist feel like it was in death's clutches. Yumichika leaned forward and took another bite, mouth obviously going right through it, but to Ikkaku's amazement, a little of the honey bun was starting to disappear or melt away or something.

"This is definitely fucked up," he mumbled dazedly, staring as Yumichika ate more of it until there was a space gone that was almost as big as a normal sized bite. "So… are you… are you stuck here forever or something?"

"No. I can leave whenever I feel like it, but I don't," Yumichika said lightly. "I came here because I thought that maybe if I tried to get back in my body, I might be able to come back to life, but you saw how that turned out."

"You were still dead," Ikkaku said slowly, thinking back to that night a few days ago.

"Yes, it was too late. My brain was completely dead. Maybe if I'd found my way back quicker they could have saved me, but my body was no good anymore by the point I got back in."

"But you could still move, and… You could've stayed like that, right?" Ikkaku said hopefully. Yumichika sighed, letting go of his arm finally, trying to root through the rest of Ikkaku's lunch, only causing the brown paper bag to rustle a little. He whined in frustration, trying to drag something out, but being unable to do more than make the ziploc bags crinkle. Ikkaku took out a bag of pretzels and opened it up for Yumichika, but the ghost still couldn't reach or pick any of them up, so Ikkaku had to hold it for him while he ate it.

It was weird; if anything like that had happened while Yumichika was alive, he would've been blushing like mad right now, but somehow he was more at peace in Yumichika's presence now. Yumichika was dead. There was no need to fear about his feelings being discovered or rejected or anything. It was why people admitted secrets on their death beds.

"No, Ikkaku. My spirit is alive, but the body was not. Even if I stayed in there, the body still would have started to rot. An animated corpse isn't alive, unfortunately."

"But you could at least move around and almost talk, that has to-"

"No," Yumichika shook his head, cutting him off, getting Ikkaku frustrated and upset on his behalf. "You saw how hard it was to even move. All the blood in my body was coagulated and I could hardly move my own muscles or think straight or… I'm dead, Ikkaku."

Those words tore him apart, ringing in his head. It took him a moment to notice that he'd stopped breathing, tensed up so much that it hurt.

' _I'm dead, Ikkaku.'_

He kept hearing it over and over in his ears, but those words, Ikkaku couldn't accept them. Yumichika was here talking to him, still as beautiful as when he'd been alive. This had to count. Yumichika could stay here and somehow live a life with him, right? Who cared if it was perverted and wrong or against the natural order? As long as it was in alignment with their beings and it wasn't hurting anyone else, then it was okay for them to do it, right? They could be  _happy._

"Whatever this is, it defies the laws of nature, but I never studied law," Yumichika said sarcastically, trying to take a bite of the pretzel, causing it to snap in half. Ikkaku caught it on his palm, letting Yumichika eat it right out of his hand. It tickled a little, causing him to laugh and give a sigh.

Suddenly, Yumichika yawned and stretched, blinking lazily. "I'm tired… I'll be back in a minute, I have to take a drink from the lake." That lake that Yumichika kept mentioning, it bugged Ikkaku like mad, because Yumichika wouldn't elaborate further on it other than that there was a lake nearby. He needed to take frequent drinks and always returned looking like he'd been chased by the devil.

"Hey, Cindy? I'm takin' my lunch break," Ikkaku called, gathering up his stuff and getting ready to go home to his little apartment.

"You can go home for the day, Ikkaku," she said in a monotone. "We'll call if anyone drops dead."

"Don't jinx it now," he said morbidly, laughing a little. "See ya'. Hey, I'm sorry for all those times I called you crazy."

"You've never called my crazy."

"Well obviously not out loud. I'm afraid of you cutting my head off… I mean… I just-"

"Never realized I wasn't talking to myself?" she finished knowingly. Ikkaku nodded sheepishly. "Water under the bridge." Ikkaku grinned and waved at her. By the time he crossed the threshold of his apartment, Yumichika was back.

"You could have told me you were going somewhere! I couldn't find you," Yumichika said in upset, seeming frantic and almost near tears. He was quite disheveled, as if he'd been running for his life... or whatever. "You don't get it, do you? It hurts to be away from my resting place, Ikkaku, I'm  _dead_."

"Geez, I'm sorry, at least you found me… wait, did you-" Ikkaku backtracked over what he'd just said.

"Forget it," Yumichika said airily, waving off his concerns about that thing he had said about his resting place being transferred. Did that mean that he himself was now Yumichika's 'grave'? Did this mean he was being possessed or haunted? He shuddered roughly.

"Ugh, so ugly. How can you stand living here?" Yumichika said snootily, lingering in the doorway. Ikkaku scowled, turning away from him and shoving the remnants of his lunch in his tiny fridge.

"I like it." Yumichika shut up, probably realizing that Ikkaku had taken a huge step up by moving here away from that blasted city. "Come inside, what are you waiting for?"

"I can't," Yumichika said uneasily. "Invite me in."

"I just did."

"Ah, put that light out," Yumichika complained as he came inside, trying to close the door. His hands kept going through, of course, unable to mess with Ikkaku's house if he was visible, so Ikkaku had to come back and kick it shut himself, turning out the lights swiftly to make his dead guest more comfortable. Did Yumichika need to sleep? Maybe he could share his little bed with him.

Immediately, Yumichika was visible, so crisply that he looked completely solid and real other than the fact that he was floating. After rolling around on Ikkaku's little couch, Yumichika drifted down the hallway, looking around. "Hm, it's more spacious that it looked from the outside. It's strange. The light didn't bother me until I came through the doorway."

"Mm," Ikkaku mumbled, looking for a beer, popping the top off and taking a sip.

"Why on earth do you have a window indoors?" Yumichika asked, glancing back at him confusion.

"That's a mirror," Ikkaku said patiently. Yumichika looked surprised, looking back at the mirror, squinting his eyes up like he didn't believe him.

"Huh," he said, stumped, seeming to briefly mourn the fact that he couldn't look at his own face anymore. "But look, I can put my hand through it," he demonstrated, sticking his arm in up to the shoulder.

"You can put your hand through the wall too," Ikkaku answered, coming over to prove that it was a mirror. Yumichika seemed surprised when Ikkaku's reflection appeared in the glass.

"No, no, look, I can put my hand in." Sure enough, when Yumichika put his hand through the mirror once more, his hand appeared on the other side as if it really were an open window. Ikkaku watched, eyes going wide as the mirror started going black, leaving Yumichika's pale arm as the only thing visible in the dark room.

Suddenly Yumichika screamed, and Ikkaku freaked out, seeing that Yumichika had been grabbed and that he was being towed forward. Maybe mirrors were freaky dimensional portals, which explained why vampires and other magical creatures were wary of them. That might be why Yumichika had called it a window, besides the fact that he couldn't see himself in the glass.

Ikkaku tried to grab Yumichika by the shoulders, but of course he couldn't. All he could do was helplessly watch as Yumichika was dragged slowly through the hole. He was sure that Yumichika would break into mist and be tugged through, but as if he were solid, Yumichika got stuck when his arm was pulled up to his armpit, shoulder hitting the mirror frame, not letting him budge. Yumichika was still screaming and was crying a little out of fear, curling up and bracing his feet on the edge of the frame to try to pull himself back out.

"Let go!" Yumichika screeched frantically, crying in fear without any tears coming from his eyes. Ikkaku looked through the hole, able to see in again now that Yumichika had pulled himself out up to his elbow. He could see a strange gray landscape with a black sky, horrifying nightmare beasts roaming around and shrieking, tearing at their own eye sockets.

"Let go of him!" Ikkaku shouted, heart pounding, still just staring helplessly as Yumichika grappled against the large deformed hand trying to drag him through. Using his weight against the fear-beast, Yumichika braced his foot on the top of the frame, pulling as hard as he could until he bowled backwards, flying through the back wall of the hallway. Ikkaku freaked out and took the mirror off the wall, ready to stomp on it and break the glass, which was normal once again. Thinking better of it, he just threw it out. He didn't need anymore bad luck.

"Yumichika? Hey, are you okay?" Ikkaku called warily, putting his ear to the hallway where Yumichika had fallen through into his neighbor's house.

Eventually he coaxed Yumichika back into his house and sat on the couch with him, putting his arms around the poor ghost awkwardly as he cried and shook. It was a little weird to have his arms around nothing and to stroke hair that wasn't real, but he could feel some sort of invisible barrier, growing stronger and stronger as Yumichika manifested himself enough that he looked solid. He could feel his shirt moving on its own as Yumichika tried to fist his hands in the fabric, huddling up to his warm chest, still shaking erratically as he wept.

"That was really scary," he sniffled. "I have to go back. I'm not supposed to be here."

"You… you don't have to go… You said you transferred your resting place… You could stay," Ikkaku said hopefully, stroking Yumichika's back, feeling something this time, just a small sensation like testing the strength of a spider web. Yumichika lay his head on his shoulder pitifully, sniffling more.

"I wonder if that world will send something to come get me… There might be a price to staying here. It's just…" Yumichika sighed, and Ikkaku just listened, realizing how wrong this was. He was sitting alone in a dark room holding the ghost of his dead love. If that wasn't being a doormat, he didn't know what was. It was just… he didn't  _want_  to get over Yumichika, even if it meant being like Renji and going half-mad from loneliness. He didn't want to get over him.

"I don't want to go," Yumichika said, voice wrenched with despair as he clung to Ikkaku's body as if it was the only thing keeping him here. "I don't want to go… I'm not ready yet," he whimpered miserably.

"You… You're haunting me, aren't you… That's why you're here…" Ikkaku said slowly, working it out. Yumichika kept saying something about transferring his resting place and being uncomfortable away from his earthly body, but… now he was following _him,_ so... "I'm being haunted."

"There isn't a place on earth I wouldn't follow you to now. You're my grave, and I can't be at peace unless I'm here… with you," Yumichika said, calming down, resting his head on his chest. Ikkaku could feel some sort of weight there, some sensation, but it wasn't the same as having contact with a living person.

"Think of it as a haunting if you want… I will follow you wherever you may go… and nothing will keep me away. If I don't, I'll become like Kaa, tortured and wandering… or I'll be taken away to the land of the dead… into the lake."

Ikkaku ran his hands over Yumichika's head, stroking his hair. Sometimes he wondered whether Yumichika would be happier on the other side, so that he could be with Kaa. Surely Yumichika must miss him? Surely he must feel so much pain at having lost him? Ikkaku knew better than to bring it up, assuming that Yumichika was just excellent at putting on a brave face.

Yumichika gave a little sigh, letting Ikkaku touch him because he was being so careful not to let his hand sink through his transparent body. He just trailed his hands over the boundaries of Yumichika's almost-solid skin, feeling some subtle barrier of energy.

"I'm not ready to go yet… I want to live… So I'm going to stay and haunt you even if you don't want me here. I'm going to follow you," Yumichika said morbidly, looking up into his eyes to test whether that would scare Ikkaku. At that moment, Ikkaku felt an eerie but assured sense that he wouldn't mind following Yumichika either, even if that meant following him in death.

When he gave no reaction, Yumichika seemed satisfied and laid his head down again, giving a breathy sigh and a pleased hum, becoming brighter and more real than ever before.

As he became nearly solid, glowing and vibrating just a tiny bit, Ikkaku planted a kiss on the top of his misty head, feeling a sensation similar to cold marble touch his lips when he hit the barrier of energy.

Being haunted might not be so bad.

* * *

_I wonder if humans, before they die,_   
_can turn into angels, even though they can't fly._   
_If you were ever to leave me, if you ever tried,_   
_I'd follow you, angel, I cannot lie._

* * *

' _So what have you been doing since I last saw you?'_

Renji paused in his work on the servant's kitchen's wall and read the hurried writing, which was Ichigo's way of prompting him to start a conversation. He read it over and handed the little notepad back to Ichigo, who needed it to be able to reply. "Ah, this and that. I finished my degree."

Yes, he'd finished his degree, and it had been hell dragging himself through the rest of those four years after Ichigo had gone. It had been difficult to get through it what with him being so depressed and broken up, but he had graduated at the top of his class with a stunning grade point average. He'd practically slaved over those textbooks, trying to prove something to himself, perhaps just pitifully pushing himself forward with the thought that he wanted to have accomplished something if Ichigo decided to come back one day. That had been his goal, that if Ichigo ever showed up again, he wanted to have something that would make him proud.

Ichigo's eyes widened and he gave him a look that said, ' _really?'_

Seeing Ichigo's face light up like that was like an angel had just hit him in the face with a ball of glitter. It felt  _great_ , and suddenly all of those nights he spent alone and studying until his eyes wouldn't stay open were worth it.

"Yeah, yeah, I really did," Renji said with a grin, even though he still had some student loans. He'd actually gotten quite a few scholarships and had worked to pay off some of the money, but he wasn't that concerned with the debt.  _This_  wasn't the kind of debt that would get him disemboweled.

"I know, I never thought I'd actually do it, but I did finish it," Renji went on, acknowledging Ichigo's shock. Maybe Ichigo had thought that without his guidance, Renji had gone back to his bad life and his old ways, but Ichigo leaving had really been a rude awakening for Renji. He hadn't been able to completely leave all of that shit behind, but he'd gotten through completing that degree that he'd started for Ichigo. He could get a good job and take care of them if they ever left this place. He could be responsible, he'd keep trying hard. He could be worthy of Ichigo's attention, finally.

Ichigo smiled that gorgeous smile of his, the one Renji hadn't seen in so many years. It struck him dumb, leaving him to just stare at his mute friend, getting patted on the back.

"Wow," Ichigo said with a little laugh, grinning wider, chucking Renji on the shoulder in congratulations.

"Thanks," Renji said humbly, looking down at his dirty hands, clapping them together to dust them off. His heart felt really light all of a sudden, content in the knowledge that Ichigo really was proud at him, that he'd done something right  _finally._

Ichigo handed him a rag and a glass of lemonade. "Oh, thanks, Ichigo." He took a big gulp, wiping his forehead in an attempt to get hair out of his eyes without getting plaster in his hair. It was a hopeless effort, but he still tried now and then. "Mm, it's good. Thanks," he repeated, taking another drink, realizing how thirsty he was.

Ichigo gave him another little smile, scratching at the back of his neck as he watched Renji spackle the drywall in the small servant's kitchen. After another moment or two of silence, Ichigo made to leave. "Oh hey, don't go. Can't ya' hang around for a little while?" After an indecisive expression, Ichigo sat down at the little table.

Of course, it was hard to have a real conversation with Ichigo now, but since Ichigo had started opening up to him, things were getting a little better. Renji had seen him interact with others, and Ichigo would never play 'charades', mime anything, or make any kind of sound. Even when he laughed, it was just breath with no voice. It made Renji feel a little better about this horrible situation. Ichigo still had some sort of trust in him.

Even after all these years, Renji could still understand what Ichigo basically meant just by the tone of his voice, so sometimes little sounds were very telling. Ichigo also seemed to be relaxing, knowing that Renji wasn't going to make fun or think less of him because of how he sounded.

After a few minutes of watching Renji work shirtless, Ichigo called his attention by clearing his throat and saying, "Hey."

"Yeah?" Renji looked over his shoulder, setting his tools down, trying to get the plaster off his hands.

Ichigo held the notepad up over his nose and mouth, eyebrow raised.  _'Let's take a break. Walk in the garden.'_

"Alright," Renji said agreeably, putting on his dirty white t-shirt again, making to fix his hair again but giving up when he thought again of how horrible it would be to get plaster in his hair. It would probably dry and become impossible to get off. It was already like that on the places where it had gotten on his skin. Washing his hands would take a while.

He froze when Ichigo made a noise and got up to come over near him, touching his hair like there had never been a day apart between them. Renji got the point and leaned down a little so Ichigo had a better reach of his head. Ichigo took his hair down and then scooped it back up into a ponytail, just as good at it as he had been back when they'd been together. Ichigo made a humming noise like he had noticed that Renji's hair had gotten really long.

"Yeah, I know. It's a mess, right? You could cut it for me." ' _Like you used to,'_ he added mentally.

"Yeah," Ichigo said lightly, like he thought it was a good idea, pulling on the sides of his ponytail to get it tighter, just how Renji always did himself.

Renji was too shocked to speak until they'd already walked halfway through the underbrush of the overgrown garden. The tall shrubs made everything seem like a maze, and soon they were slapping mosquitoes off of each other every few seconds. At least it was secluded. No one would walk up on them, but at the same time, Renji had the eerie sense that this would be the perfect place for a murder. Maybe that was his city-blood talking.

"I'm so glad I'm outta' that damned city," Renji mumbled. "It's so nice out here. Ow!" he yelped in spite of himself, slapping a bug off his arm. Ichigo gave him a half-hearted grin.

"Remvi?"

"Hm?"

"How… how you fee'w?" Ichigo said, cheeks turning pink, but eyes still concerned. Renji got that he was still embarrassed and never even commented on it, making it seem like it was no big deal for him to talk if he wanted. It seemed to help Ichigo a lot.

"You… You a'righ'?"

Renji gave a deep sigh, heart plummeting as he remembered poor Yumichika. It was kind of sad that he was getting used to losing the people he loved. Maybe it was some sort of bad luck, or maybe it was just  _him._

"I… I'm okay, I just… It's like every good influence in my life is taken away. Sometimes I think the universe is trying to kill me."

Ichigo frowned. Renji shrugged it off, telling him that it was okay. Then he made to go around the corner of a large hedge and almost planted his face in the dirt when his foot went down through the tall grass into a hidden dip. Ichigo grabbed the back of his arm, perhaps remembering the days when they'd been equally matched in strength. At this point, Renji was a good deal heavier than him, which sent them both tumbling to the ground.

"Woah, sorry," Renji said sheepishly, and Ichigo just looked back at him, ass in the dirt, looking only vaguely concerned about his expensive clothes. After a minute, Ichigo reached over, pulled a piece of grass out of Renji's hair and started laughing.

He just looked so young, so free and happy like he had when they'd first gotten together, before Renji's bad connections started to catch up with them. He still looked like his angel, the angel he'd been before he'd left. Thinking about it made him feel like his heartstrings were being cut with a saw.

"Heh," he laughed a little too, ruffling a dead leaf out of his hair, watching Ichigo wipe dirt off his own cheek. "That was stupid, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Ichigo said immediately with a sarcastic tone.

Renji smile softened as he looked back at Ichigo all ruffled up. "I missed you." Ichigo's smile faded, and his eyes became wary and distant.

"I miff' you," Ichigo said clumsily, not meeting his eye. "Um… Me… uh…"

"You missed me too," Renji completed for him. Ichigo nodded, pulling his legs up to his chest, resting his head on his knees pitifully.

"'orry," Ichigo mumbled, closing his eyes, "for…"

"It's okay," Renji said back, trying to meet his gaze once Ichigo looked back at him again. "I know how hard I made things for you… I… I deserved to have you leave me," he forced out, overcome by grief for a moment. Ichigo snapped upwards, jolting forward, shaking his head, eyebrows scrunched up in despair.

Renji took his wrists and made him let go, pushing him back as much as it hurt him to do so. He didn't need Ichigo to pity him. This was his own fault. "No. No, it's the truth. I got us into so much shit." He ran an exasperated hand over his head, glaring at the ground. "There was so much danger and… I know how far it pushed you. I'm surprised you put up with it as long as you did."

Ichigo made a little frustrated noise, obviously wanting to say something, to yell at him, but being unable to. He settled for hitting Renji in the face. "Rem!" He made another frustrated noise, shaking his head frantically. "Mmm!" He grabbed his own hair, fisting his hands in it, groaning at Renji in upset.

"Stop, stop, I'm not trying to make you mad," Renji said, trying to appease him. Ichigo made a pitiful noise, flopping forward, head in his thin hands. Renji patted his shoulder a little. "Hey…  _Hey."_

Ichigo looked up, eyes just a little bit wet, face unguarded and vulnerable. It reminded Renji of the old days, when Ichigo would only drop his scowl when they were alone together. Now that he couldn't speak, that face wasn't just for him anymore, but for everyone who needed it to read how he was feeling.

Renji jolted back, throat tightening up as he tried to tell Ichigo how he felt. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry… and I want to fix things, okay?" Ichigo let out a breathy sigh, almost smiling, looking so sad that it almost looked like he could die right there.

"I'm ready to grow up and be responsible and never go back to anything like that again. I decided I don't care about the action, all I want is to… Look, the point is, I'm ready to change." Renji took his shoulders, trying to get Ichigo to stop looking so hopeless. Ichigo looked like these were the words he'd always wanted to hear, but knew that they had come too late.

"I wanna' change and be good for you…" Renji swallowed, tipping Ichigo's chin up and rubbing his cheek. "I… I know you have roots planted here, but… I wanna' change, okay? That's why I put myself through school even after you left… I wanna' be able ta' take care a' you an' make you happy."

Ichigo brought a hand up and held Renji's hand there on his face even after he tried to pull it back. His eyes closed and he swallowed hard, not letting Renji pull back. "I… I know you're with that guy now, and I dunno' whether you have a contract here or something, but I missed you so much… I…" Ichigo brought their locked hands to his own heart, looking up into Renji's eyes, smiling sadly like he thought Renji was a poor fool.

"Yeah," he said simply, his eyes saying ' _me too.'_

"Ichigo… I…" Renji started getting choked up  _again_ , just sitting there seeing Ichigo's grief-racked smile. Even if it had only been there for an instant, it reminded him of the few happy times they'd had, and his heart couldn't take it. He grabbed Ichigo's hands, making them stand up, which wiped the smile off of Ichigo's face.

"I… I love you," he forced out, throat tight and burning. This time the tears were coming and he could hardly keep them in, alarmed at how quickly he was breaking when he hadn't even been able to shed one tear for Yumichika. "I love you, Ichigo, I still love you."

Ichigo just stared back at him, eyes blank and uncomprehending. Renji began to break down, letting go of Ichigo's hands, bringing them up to his eyes as if he could hold the ocean of tears inside like he had for so long. His strong shoulders slumped, shaking as his breath began to grow choppy.

"Why… Why did you leave?" he asked, voice shaking with a sob. Ichigo's face scrunched up as he took a step back. "What was the final straw for you? You could've told me, I would've done  _anything._ " Ichigo seemed alarmed and put-off by his weepiness, taking another half-step away from him.

Renji freaked out, thinking Ichigo was going to run, so he dropped to his knees, grabbing Ichigo's pant legs, digging his forehead into his leg. "Why did you leave me?" he asked, hardly able to speak anymore as he wrapped his arms around Ichigo's leg. "Why, why did you go? It hurts so bad!"

Ichigo was starting to tug away, half dragging him until Renji managed to trip him to the ground, causing him to sit down heavily. "Ah!" Ichigo shouted in pain, having the wind knocked out of him. They looked like a couple of idiots, just rolling around in the dirt, but Renji still refused to let go.

"Please, Ichigo, tell me," Renji begged, tears finally overflowing. "What was the last straw that made you go?" He knew he probably looked like a wreck, but he just couldn't take the heartache any longer, trying to get some of it out. Ichigo got pissed, kicking him a little, but Renji just looked so pathetic that Ichigo took pity on him.

He grumbled at him, taking out his notepad and writing in plain sight of Renji. He tried to get it together, reading with shaky breaths. "Overheard… weird Arrancar gang… that got information on you…"

Renji looked up, not understanding, wiping his face. "They got information on me?"

' _You owed bad people a lot of money and they knew you couldn't pay. They were gonna kill you and sell your body parts by the end of the month to pay your debt.'_

Renji put a hand up to his mouth, knowing where this was going. He began shaking his head, moaning lowly that it couldn't be true. "No, no, no, please no. You didn't, you'd never-"

' _I made them take me instead.'_

Renji's heart broke.

* * *

_Have you heard the news that you're dead?_   
_No one ever had much nice to say_   
_I think they never liked you anyway_


	5. Chapter 5

_There's a ghost in my bedroom, it haunts me at night.  
_ _I've asked him to leave, but he keeps stopping by._

* * *

Ikkaku was quickly getting used to living with a ghost. His routine was hardly different at all, except his 'out-loud' talking was actually directed at someone this time. He realized soon enough that Yumichika could mess with this world more if he wasn't focusing all his energy on appearing solid. For most of the day, Yumichika simply lazed around in a fog that Ikkaku could hardly see, but he still seemed determined to be irritating.

When Ikkaku worked near the woods, Yumichika made mock-ghost noises in his ear. When Ikkaku tried to do some pleasure-reading at home, Yumichika played with the lights and the TV channels. When Ikkaku tried to pay bills and sort his mail, Yumichika slammed doors. When Ikkaku tried to talk to living people, Yumichika would bug him and pull on his shirt or even make inappropriate comments that were almost impossible to ignore. When Ikkaku tried to sleep, Yumichika pulled off his blankets and whined for Ikkaku to pay attention to him.

After about a week, Ikkaku was pretty ticked off, but at the same time, he couldn't get this stupid grin off his mug. Yumichika was a fucking brat and it made him want to punch something, but he loved how it made him feel, even if it was really irritating. It had to be something like love, no matter screwed up it was.

For about twenty minutes every few hours, Yumichika might come into solid form and show his face, able to talk to Ikkaku somewhat even without that headset. Ikkaku couldn't wear it all the time, after all, because it was weird-looking and drew attention, but it was nice to wear it while he worked so that Yumichika and he could talk even when he was just random mist following him around. It seemed to be getting easier for Yumichika to stay in the material plane, just as long as he took frequent breaks.

Ikkaku's life had turned into some sort of stupid TV show about the supernatural, except he wasn't some yuppie idiot trying to get ten minutes of fame by lying. He knew better than to use Yumichika for money or attention, like those selfish idiots from the Beetlejuice movie. If he ticked Yumichika off, he might leave, and he didn't want that. With his horrible luck, Ikkaku knew to quit when he was ahead.

Even though he was outwardly pissed, Ikkaku was actually in a pretty good mood. In fact, he hadn't remembered ever having this bitter gloom away for long enough to even smile.

Renji was still moping around and had come to see Yumichika's grave once, sitting by it for an hour with a sad look on his face. Ikkaku mentioned that he wasn't in there, and Renji just gave a sigh, saying that he hoped Yumichika had gone to heaven. Yumichika hadn't been able to stop laughing when he'd heard that.

Of course, Ikkaku laughed a little too, and Renji looked ready to punch him for daring to find it funny. The poor guy was seriously about to cry, fucking pissed off that Ikkaku was making light of the fact that Yumichika was dead. Ikkaku felt a little ashamed, knowing that it was insensitive to act like everything was fine when Renji was drowning in grief. Renji was ready to hit Ikkaku, when Yumichika slapped him in the face. Renji must've felt something because he went stock still, eyes flicking around as he listened.

Ikkaku just watched as Yumichika kissed Renji's cheek and said something in his ear. Renji then looked at Ikkaku really strangely, eyebrows narrowing. "What the fuck are you getting yourself into?" Renji muttered.

"No more trouble than you are," Ikkaku retorted, still pissed that Renji had taken that job up at that hellhouse.

"I can't leave," Renji insisted, dark mood floating away as he moved to a lighter subject. Yumichika seemed to have brought him some peace just then. "Ichigo's there."

"What?" Ikkaku asked skeptically. "Dude, you've lost it. Ichigo's  _gone._ " He really did feel bad for Renji. The poor guy must've finally cracked from being so lonely. Maybe laughing like that in front of him had been the final straw.

Renji shook his head, frustrated, "No dude, he's been holed up here all this time. He… he got dragged into my bad line a' work and… now he's some sort of… It's messed up, but I swear I found him," Renji said, not making much sense. "I… This place was perfect for me to get away from all this shit, but I have to get him out of there. We can find another place like this somewhere else. I'm not gonna' let all the crap I messed around with hurt him anymore. If I can convince him to leave, you should come with us."

"Alright man, go with God," Ikkaku said back, patting his shoulder. Renji shortly left, looking much better than he had when he'd come in. Yumichika gave a sigh too, seeming to be glowing brighter now that someone else had mourned his loss.

"Okay, Casper, let's go, I've gotta' finish with this," Ikkaku mumbled, letting Yumichika pull on his shirt collar as he dissolved back into a cloud of fog visible to his eyes alone. Part of him had hoped that Renji would have been able to see Yumichika too, but no such luck.

As he got to thinking, he wondered if Yumichika would be able to follow them if they really did leave this place. It might be too far of a stretch for him, or he might not be able to keep up. Was there any way for a ghost to ride in a car? Ikkaku had no idea.

After a few more hours of yardwork, Ikkaku stretched out under a shady tree, hardly able to see the gray sky through the leaves and branches. He snacked on an energy bar, wondering if this was how the rest of his life was going to be. Maybe he was just insane or something. Maybe he was lonely like Renji and had dreamed this whole thing up. But no, Renji had felt Yumichika just then.

Maybe they were both crazy.

"You know," Ikkaku said, chewing noisily. "In high school I had such a crush on you."

Yumichika solidified with a sweet smile, seeming to be laying on his front in midair, palms supporting his face. His front was slightly lower than his legs, which were kicking idly, and every few moments he would rise and fall a few inches, like he was floating but still blowing in the wind.

"Oh really?" Yumichika asked with a little wink, sounding genuinely curious. Ikkaku grimaced, sure that Yumichika had noticed when they were high-schoolers. He was probably the stupidest shyest idiot around. Yumichika would've been blind not to notice him blushing whenever he tried to talk to him. It was strange, but there really wasn't any awkward pressure anymore. Maybe Yumichika dying had finally put Ikkaku's priorities in order, which was kind of sad.

"Yeah," he said simply, taking another bite of the chocolate-covered granola. He held it up after a minute while he chewed, letting Yumichika taste it. He'd locked the cemetery gates, so hopefully no one would come in and see him conversing with nothing.

"You were pretty," Ikkaku said flatly, "and I really liked you."

"You did seem glad to see me the day I died," Yumichika mentioned with a nostalgic tone, eyes pained but happy. "I thought for sure you were going to hug me or ask me to go for coffee."

"I was gonna' try… but… for all the crap I talk about, I'm stupid when it comes to that stuff. I'm not that tough, really, if it comes ta' somethin' other than fighting."

"You were shy," Yumichika said knowingly, doing a little squeal and rolling over, giggling to himself. Ikkaku scowled and threw a rock through him. "Hey!"

"Just shut up. 'Knew you'd get all fulla' yourself, you brat," Ikkaku mumbled, fighting a grin off his face. "I was gonna' try to make friends with you, but… I knew about your busy life and… I thought that maybe you and… you and Kaa had split up. I thought that it would be perfect for starting a new life out here… a new start…"

Yumichika was quiet for a moment, floating lower so that he was almost touching the tops of the grass where he lay in midair. Ikkaku gave a heavy sigh, heart starting to get weighed down by loss and shit. It was just, he felt the loss that Yumichika had been dealt. Yumichika had had such a bright life ahead of him, a marriage to a wonderful man, an insanely profitable career, and being able to travel the world. He'd had everything he'd ever wanted, he'd reached his  _dreams_ , and it had all been taken away.

"I'm sorry," Ikkaku said roughly, not meeting Yumichika's eyes, fiddling with a piece of grass. "I… I didn't mean for this to happen, I-"

"You're not at fault, so don't you dare go down that road with me, Ikkaku. I will not listen to this, it'll… Stop-" Yumichika said, flickering, convulsing in grief and pain, blackness starting to consume him.

"Okay, okay, I'll shut up. I'm just glad that we finally have a chance to talk, and… get to know each other, I guess. It's messed up, but I'm glad… I'm really glad I met you," Ikkaku mumbled, relieved when Yumichika didn't turn into some disgusting monster.

"I'm sure that I can't stay forever," Yumichika said lightly. Ikkaku looked up again, slightly panicked that this wonderful blessing would be taken away.

"But… but things have been great, they've been fine. You're _fine_  here, _you're staying with me,_ " he asserted, even though he didn't feel so sure of what he was saying. It wasn't as if he could intimidate a ghost, so he had no idea why he was raising his voice. Perhaps some part of him realized that he had no control over this situation, and it scared him.

"No," Yumichika said in thought. "There's probably something… I don't know, Ikkaku, there's… it just doesn't seem right for things to be like this. I'm sure that eventually I'll have to go."

"You can go once I'm dead too," Ikkaku said without thinking, and suddenly Yumichika's eyes went wide and he glowed brighter, slapping him hard across the face.

Ikkaku's head snapped to the side and he brought his hand up to his cheek. That had actually hurt. He'd heard about ghosts being able to hurt people, but… Yumichika…

"Ow," he mumbled, looking up in shock to see Yumichika fade into nothing. That must've expended a huge amount of energy, to really be able to hurt him. He could feel Yumichika creeping up his neck and gripping his arms in a deadly mist, but all he could do was put on his headphones and listen. It was starting to freak him out.

"Don't you dare-"

"You'd… No, don't even say it-"

"How ungrateful are you for the life you live, when mine's been taken-"

"-Lost Kaa that way already, and then you threaten me with your suicide, I'll  _kill_  you-"

Ikkaku swallowed hard, drawing his knees up, feeling a prickle of fear creeping up his neck. Yumichika's voice was going deeper and was coming from several different directions in different tones. If Yumichika was purposefully trying to scare him, then it was working.

"For you to say something like that, no… disgusting. I'll hurt you, you selfish, ungrateful, wasteful-"

"-shouldn't have to put my life on hold for  _you._  As if I should wait here for you for years now that I'm dead, it's not fair…"

"-watch you every day live like I did and I can't fully join you, and then you say-"

"To hear you talk about your life so easily like that, like it has no value… How would that make me feel, how would that- No, you shut up,  _shut up before I turn your mouth inside out!"_

It didn't even sound like Yumichika anymore, and all Ikkaku felt was the cold creeping up his back. "If you even think about acting on those words, don't expect any kind of mercy from me. Ugh, I wouldn't even be able to look at you, just the fact that you said something like that makes me want to  _scream!"_

"Okay, I'm sorry, I said it without thinking, I didn't mean it!" Ikkaku said, knowing that that had probably hurt Yumichika on some personal level. Slowly, as the seconds crept by, the cold began to withdraw and the mist reformed and left Yumichika lying pitifully on the ground, skin peeling like the day they'd met. Ikkaku was horrified to see Yumichika wiping silver tears off his poor face. Even when he'd been crying when being dragged into the mirror, there hadn't been tears.

"Aw man, don't cry… c'mon," Ikkaku said helplessly, not knowing what to do as he watched Yumichika sniffle. The ground was getting wet right there, but Yumichika didn't care, just staring at him with betrayed wounded eyes. "I'm sorry," Ikkaku repeated over and over, not knowing what else to say, not knowing how to comfort him when he couldn't touch him. He'd have to be more careful with what came out of his mouth. He forgot that spirits were usually malevolent or haunted and that weird things could set them off.

Yumichika had had all his dreams stolen from him, and for Ikkaku to say something like that was surely infuriating. It was like he'd thought. He wasn't a gentlemen; he was insensitive and unkind, and nothing had changed. Loving someone and feeling guilty wasn't enough to redeem him. Leaving a bad place and a bad past hadn't made him a good person.

Ikkaku exhaled all at once, "I just... " It was hard to talk all of a sudden as he watched Yumichika sit up and turn away, sulking and crying to himself. "I just miss you so much, even though you're here… I… I  _loved_  you, I must have for it to hurt like this… and I can't stand that you're gone."

Yumichika sniffed and wiped his eyes, trying to fix his face or something before he turned around, like the vain idiot he'd always been. "You… You loved me… and yet you let all your opportunities slip. How does it feel… How does it feel to know that you had a chance and that you missed it? You could have said that to me when I was alive. You had  _years_  to say something. Don't bother telling me this now. Don't you  _dare_  tell me this now. It's too late."

The pain was sharp and hit him deep, probably what Yumichika had been aiming for, but Ikkaku didn't get upset.

"It's never too late," Ikkaku muttered. He tried to keep it together, holding a hand out, cringing when Yumichika hissed at him and flinched away. "That's why I came here… to start over… Even though I'm getting closer to being thirty, it's… it's not too late for me to start over and be a good person… I… I was going to try to get closer to you once I found out that you moved here… and… it must mean something, right?... That we met?"

Yumichika sniffled and turned around. Ikkaku could see that the tears coming from his eyes seemed to be made of something other than ghost mist. They were oddly silver like molten metal and they ran down Yumichika's face like real tears, but as they dripped off, they fell right through him and hit the ground with soft 'pit-pat' noises.

"It must mean something that we're still able to talk… Right? This-"

"Are you afraid?" Yumichika suddenly asked, voice solemn. Ikkaku just stared at him for a minute, hesitantly starting to answer, once again interrupted. "You said that when you're dead you'll follow me, but how will you know? You know nothing of this place I live in… the afterlife… Hm? Are you afraid?"

Yumichika stood up, and Ikkaku slowly got up too, watching Yumichika beckon him in. Hesitantly, he started forward through the shadows, through the darkness that the overcast skies provided. He lifted a hand, holding it out, slowly approaching as his vision began to tunnel. A moment before he touched Yumichika's chest, he stopped, something halting him.

A deep fear started resounding in his gut, rendering him immobile, pounding through his body even louder than his own heartbeat. Blackness was all there was, and… a path, and Yumichika there in front of him.

Yumichika's eyes were haunting, and his voice seemed to echo in his head, multi-dimensional. "Are you afraid… to follow me?"

Ikkaku reached forward.

Yumichika seemed surprised that he hadn't hesitated, but Ikkaku's hand just went right through him. For once, Yumichika didn't turn into smoke; he just stayed there, seeming to be uncomfortable as he looked down at Ikkaku's hand, which was feeling around inside his transparent chest, perhaps trying to grab at his heart.

"Ah, stop," Yumichika finally said, making Ikkaku withdraw. Ikkaku looked at his own hand, holding it by the wrist as if it were no longer his own. It was paler than the rest of his skin now and was stone cold.

"You see… You're alive, Ikkaku. You need to be here. That's what living ones must do," he said disdainfully, as if living humans were the scum of the earth. Ikkaku detected some bitterness, maybe even jealousy, but after all, Yumichika had had everything stolen away from him. He must sound so selfish to want to give up his own life just like that, when Yumichika would do anything to be alive again.

"It's no crime to be alive," he said in his own defense.

"No," Yumichika smiled cruelly, floating just enough above him that Ikkaku had to look up to see his face, almost cowering now that Yumichika was finally taller than him, using size for his advantage instead of the other way around.

"No, it's no crime, but it's an inconvenience, isn't it… The living can be hurt," he whispered, and Ikkaku wondered for a moment whether Yumichika was threatening him, perhaps trying to scare him away from the idea of following him into dead-world.

He didn't have time to back up, because the next moment, Yumichika was holding his face and kissing him. Well, he was kissing him the best way a ghost could. Ikkaku could hardly feel anything, but stayed still, letting it happen. It felt like cold air rushing over his mouth, and part of him wondered how it would've been to kiss Yumichika when his heart had still been beating, when he was warm with living blood, when his eyes had been violet and when his smile had been blinding.

Suddenly the words just popped into Ikkaku's head:  _kiss of death._

"You're sweet," Yumichika said, and Ikkaku could see that his eyes were sad and wet again. He gave a sigh that was more of a sad moan, floating to the ground and curling up in a ball. "I miss Kaa and everything, but… You're sweet, Ikkaku. I'm glad you love me."

"You're a brat," Ikkaku muttered, sitting down next to him.

* * *

_If I was traveling the depths of Hell,_   
_or sailing Heaven Blue_   
_I swear - for lies, I cannot tell -_   
_I wouldn't without you_

_I'd stay at the gate with Heaven's bouncer,  
_ _or cry Hell's fires dry  
_ _If you weren't there with me, my lover,  
_ _I'd wait there till' you died._

* * *

After Ichigo's confession, Renji had become extremely apologetic, which in turn got Ichigo irritated again. After they had another difficult argument, things simmered down, and Ichigo became happy, happier than Renji had seen him in a long time. His dreams seemed to have come true, because he could only assume that Ichigo had missed him too.

Ichigo had finally warmed up to him again and was giving him that smile and that caring attitude that he'd remembered from the start of their relationship. Sure they still argued and shoved each other, with Ichigo having to come up with creative ways to swear at him and call him names, but it was also coupled with secret hand-holding. Ichigo had even kissed him on the cheek a couple of times when no one was looking.

Renji took it all with a ruddy blush and a gruff clearing of his throat, sometimes shoving Ichigo back when he got too mushy. "Don't fuckin' be nice to me," he said when Ichigo made him lunch.

"Hey," Ichigo said again loudly, pushing him until he took the plate with the sandwich and the orange juice.

"Thanks," Renji said, already having shoved half of the sandwich in his mouth. Ham, cheese, lettuce, green pepper, pickle, and a little mayo. Ichigo hadn't forgotten a thing even though it had been three years since he'd last made him a sandwich. When he looked up, still chewing, Ichigo had a conflicted look on his face. His eyes were kind of starry, but he was also scowling, like it was hard to be head over heels for someone who had mayonnaise on their face.

Ichigo leaned right in and sucked it off his top lip. Renji gave a needy groan, practically jittering where he was sitting on the crumbling stone bench in the overgrown garden. He swallowed the rest of the huge bite he'd taken and grabbed Ichigo by the sides of his vest, hauling him back down.

Ichigo put a hand on his face to push him back and didn't give in even as Renji towed him closer. "Uh-uh," Ichigo said louder and louder until Renji let him go.

"Hmph," Renji pouted, eating the rest of his food.

Ichigo wrote something down, and Renji waited, liking to give Ichigo time to say what he wanted or change what he wanted to tell him. When Ichigo held up the notepad, Renji had to read it twice to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. ' _Can I come to your room tonight?'_

Renji just stared at him, stunned.

Ichigo scowled, cheeks going a little pink as he shoved the paper in his face again until he answered. "Yeah," Renji said simply, containing his excitement. "Hey, Ichigo?"

"Wha'?" Ichigo answered, taking a sip of the orange juice he'd made himself. There was a lot of pulp, so it was more like orange-sludge, but it tasted great. There was some pineapple and banana in there too.

"..." Renji took one of his hands, looking into his eyes until Ichigo set the glass down. "Would you ever come back to me?" Ichigo narrowed his eyes and then scooted closer, writing something down quickly in messy cursive.

' _I have a contract_ _.'_

"Oh right," Renji said, remembering that Ichigo was somehow bound here, maybe owing a debt of some sort, or just having a regular work contract. "But if I could find a way to get you out of here, you'd come with me, right?"

Ichigo nodded after thinking for just a short moment.

"And you wouldn't leave me again, right?"

Ichigo paused, but hesitantly nodded, as if he was reluctant in saying yes. Renji stared back for a moment, swallowing as Ichigo held his hands a little tighter.

Ichigo must have forgiven him, as if he were a child and Renji was a parent who had punished him, maybe even  _hit_  him. Ichigo had been hurt by Renji and his choices, but still, like a child, Ichigo could turn around and still love him, could still be so accepting of him and his flaws like he'd never made a mistake in the first place... Ichigo really had forgiven him, even through all the shit that had happened because of what he'd done. Renji had caused Ichigo's life to fall apart, for him to be taken away like some sex slave and yet Ichigo still cared about him. This man, this man surely couldn't be real. No one does things like this.

Suddenly, it just burst out of his mouth, even though he didn't want to put the idea in Ichigo's head.

"Why do you put up with me?" he asked incredulously, wondering why on earth Ichigo would want him back after all the crap he'd put him through. He'd had his tongue ripped out and had been abducted, for God's sake.

Ichigo took special care in writing the words. ' _Because I love you.'_

Renji was quiet for a second, bringing a hand up to rub down Ichigo's cheek. Ichigo didn't back down and stuck by what he wrote, looking back into his eyes and letting Renji lean in and touch their foreheads together. Renji gave a relieved sigh, just happy to finally have Ichigo back in his grasp after so much pain and distance. The barrier between them, the static bubble, the tension they felt when they got too close to one another, it was all gone, and suddenly Renji was allowed in Ichigo's personal space again, not being shied away from or denied.

"Can you say it out loud?" He knew that all this was beyond his wildest dreams and that it was foolish to ask for more, but…

Ichigo opened his mouth, then cringed, going back for his notepad. Renji had to let go of his hands, but he scootched in close, putting an arm around Ichigo's skinny form, looking down at the notepad while he wrote. Ichigo put his head on Renji's shoulder and leaned in, the motion so familiar that it was like breathing. Renji rubbed his cheek around on Ichigo's soft hair, taking a smell to reacquaint himself with that 'home' scent that he'd been apart from for so long. Ichigo hurriedly scribbled down,

' _I don't like talking. If we leave, I want surgery. I don't even care if I never taste again, I just want to fix this. It's hard to swallow or eat right and I sound like a retard, so until then-"_ Ichigo crossed that out. _'It's really embarrassing. It'll sound stupid.'_

"I won't laugh. On my honor," Renji promised. When he promised on his own honor, he never let that vow break. The one thing he had through all of that shit he'd gotten himself into was his own code of honor. His pride and dignity were slightly different matters, but his honor would remain intact.

' _But I'll sound like a little kid.'_ Ichigo frowned pitifully, not meeting Renji's eyes. Renji didn't tip his chin up to make him look at him, but he still shook him a little, trying to assure him that it was okay.

' _It's so pathe-'_ Renji snatched the pencil, hucking it into the distance. Ichigo just sunk down, shrugging away from him a little as he crossed his arms and brooded. Renji knew that was a dick-move, taking away Ichigo's only way to talk to him, but he wasn't going to let Ichigo wallow.

"Hey, whoever did this to you has  _not_  won. They can't keep you from talking if you wanna' talk. You don't have to say it, but do you really wanna' keep silent because of what some asshole did to you?" Renji still didn't know who did it, and he knew that some of what he'd said was a little insensitive, but that was the kind of support Ichigo needed.

'Ok,' Ichigo wrote on Renji's hand with his finger, looking up at Renji warily, then pointing at him sternly as if to say that he'd wring his neck if he laughed.

"I promise I won't laugh."

Ichigo nodded, then took a breath, and said, "I wuv you, Remvi."

"I love you too," Renji said, letting Ichigo lean in. Then he put his arms around his dangerously skinny body, dug his fingers through the soft hair that still felt like he remembered, and kissed him like they'd die tomorrow.

* * *

_. . ._

_The softest light is left aglow_   
_when lovers meet and wishes flow._   
_Reunion sweet and sad below._   
_They kiss, but little do they know…_

_. . ._

* * *

Things seemed to go uphill from there. A little after midnight they fell into each other's arms and rolled around on Renji's bed, digging passionate hands through each other's hair. They wrestled a little like old times, playfully kissing as they pinned each other down and smiled like little kids.

"Oh my god, I missed you," Renji said breathlessly, letting Ichigo pull his hair-tie out and grab handfuls of his long hair. He hadn't properly cut it since Ichigo had left him, and it had gotten kind of insane. "I love you, Ichigo, I love you, Mmph," Renji exhaled, rolling over with Ichigo, endlessly changing position like ocean waves. They just couldn't get enough of holding each other, kissing desperately as if they could make up for all the kisses that hadn't happened over three years.

Of course, it wasn't the same because Ichigo refused to let Renji's tongue in his mouth, perhaps afraid that Renji would find him disgusting. Renji didn't make him talk about it, just kissing him back and caving in to Ichigo's hands.

"Rem," Ichigo said desperately, slightly out of breath as he sat on top of Renji's middle, mock-pinning his muscled tattooed arms down. "Rem," he said again, prompting Renji to play charades with him. Over the week that they'd been reunited in their workplace, Renji had found that Ichigo was quite willing to compromise and talk to him, even though he wouldn't do so for anyone else.

"Write it on me, right here." Renji pointed to his chest, and Ichigo's eyes grew hungry, needy even. The orange-haired man's fingers shook slightly as he dragged Renji's dirty t-shirt up, revealing those tattoos that he'd been apart from for years.

Renji made soft appreciative noises as Ichigo leaned down and kissed a trail over the black lines, hands running down Renji's sides gently. After a few moments of distraction, Ichigo wrote slowly on Renji's torso, making eye contact that was so sensual it sent chills down Renji's spine. He started getting hard, fully aware of his long-lost love's hips sitting heavily on him, not as heavily as they used to, mind you. Part of Renji was afraid to undress Ichigo, not wanting to see how malnourished he surely was. He hadn't actually seen Ichigo eat anything since he'd gotten here.

"M… Make," Renji said out loud as Ichigo slowly wrote on his skin, moving his shirt up further. Ichigo's eyes were dark and wide, looking down at him like he thought he'd never see him like this again, bare from the waist up, hair a mess around him. "... Make love to me," Renji guessed, snapping up and grabbing Ichigo's wrists, pushing him straight back and leaning over the top of him. Ichigo made a pleased noise, legs wrapping up around him, trying to pull him down, not succeeding because of his new weight.

Renji stayed on his hands and knees, letting Ichigo cling to him and hang there like a koala. He sat back, simply holding Ichigo as fiercely as he could, his head still fitting so perfectly in the crook of his neck, and as Ichigo pulled back to look in his eyes and kiss him, Renji thanked god a thousand times.

He knew fully well that Grimmjow and Ichigo were involved, that Ichigo probably didn't eat so that he'd always be ready for a quickie, so that he was always weak enough for the larger man to dominate. He was sure that Grimmjow and Ichigo had fucked probably hundreds of times at this point, but he still thought Ichigo was so beautiful, that Ichigo was still his. Yes, he'd make love to him, he'd make love to him like Grimmjow would never be able to. Nothing would take his place.

He lay Ichigo down again and kissed him, holding his face tenderly with one hand, another snaking down Ichigo's chest to his waist. Ichigo gave a sweet sigh, hands coming up to stroke through his tangled hair, kissing back for a few more minutes. Renji kept getting distracted, not having realized just how much he missed kissing and holding Ichigo. Part of him just wanted to snuggle him all night long.

He came back to pay attention to what Ichigo was wearing. All week he'd tried to deny how good Ichigo looked in his uniform, but he sure didn't mind taking it off of him. Skin that he hadn't seen in years came up before his eyes as he opened each button, leaving him free to kiss a path straight down from his collar bone all the way to his belly button. Ichigo lay there, hands on the back of Renji's head, half breathless from the erotic intimate view of Renji's eyes and mouth.

Renji gently pulled on the bottom of Ichigo's white shirt, taking it out from where it was tucked into his pants. Ichigo let him slip his arms out of the sleeves, folding up the shirt and placing it to the side. Renji then pulled off Ichigo's socks and pants, taking his sweet time opening up the belt. By that point Ichigo was blushing a little, perhaps ashamed that he didn't look like Renji remembered. Renji had to admit that Ichigo  _was_  pretty skinny; it was almost painful looking, but still, it hurt his heart to see Ichigo squirming like that.

"No, don't," Renji said, gently taking his hands away from where he was clinging to his underwear. "Don't hide from me. You're… You're as gorgeous as I remember," he said honestly, giving him a kiss to the neck. Ichigo's hands went slack as he watched Renji take off his own pants.

From there Renji straddled Ichigo, letting his hair hang down around his face as he kissed him over and over and over. Ichigo's hips pressed upwards and soon they got into a rhythm of rocking against each other until they were short of breath. Ichigo was silent at first, seeming to be locked into a habit of not letting himself be heard, but then those familiar breathy sounds began to pour out, and Renji lapped it right up.

He backed up a little, moving down Ichigo's legs so he could run his hands down Ichigo's skinny torso. The poor guy had lost a lot of muscle mass, and his ribs were plainly showing. From what Renji could see, his hip bones stuck out a little too. His heart ached, realizing that it was probably pretty difficult for Ichigo to eat now. Renji was glad that he'd finally decided to get his shit together. He could take care of Ichigo now. If they could just get out of here, he could get a job, be able to afford an apartment and for Ichigo to get corrective surgery. He could give them a better life for real. He could finally be worthy of being Ichigo's lover, or at least more than that blue-haired guy was.

Renji didn't say anything about his skinniness, knowing that Ichigo was insecure about having changed, probably thinking that Renji was disgusted that he'd been having sex with someone else for years on end. He gave a melancholy sigh, ghosting his hands over the places where Ichigo was a bit too lean, kissing each rib bone in a path down his side, finally ending at the waistband of his underwear.

He mouthed at the bulge under the stretchy fabric, biting gently and sucking as he ran his fingers around the inside of the waistband teasingly. He could see Ichigo swallow and watched his head tip back and his mouth open to let him breathe out loud.

"Ohh-" Ichigo moaned breathily as Renji bit the elastic and dragged it down with his teeth, keeping eye contact. Renji backed up then so Ichigo could kick his underwear off his legs, and then let the smaller man practically tackle him onto his back. "Mnnn," Ichigo let out a sharp breath, half-smiling as if to say that he couldn't wait for Renji to help him remember how things had been between them.

Renji let out a low laugh, seeing chills go through Ichigo's body when he felt the baritone rumbling through his chest. Ichigo grabbed his upper arms and pushed them up, gripping his biceps tight as he kissed him for a few minutes, still not letting Renji's tongue in his mouth.

Then he leaned down slowly, letting the tension build as he kept eye contact, running his mouth over the thick tattoos on Renji's pectorals. Renji exhaled slowly, abdomen tensing as his nether-regions twitched, hardening against Ichigo's skinny butt. As much as he wanted to grab and reacquaint himself with Ichigo's backside, he let Ichigo dig his nails into his arms and keep them back. He didn't want Ichigo to stop when things had just started.

He moaned and began to breathe heavily as Ichigo pinched one of his nipples, rolling it between his fingers as he continued to kiss his way over the thick tribal tattoos. Renji grit his teeth as Ichigo ground his hips down onto his.

"Hey," Ichigo said, trying to communicate a thousand different meanings with one word. He loved him. He had missed him. He couldn't wait to run away with him and start over. He wanted him so badly he could hardly breathe. He would never leave him again. Somehow Renji could hear it all as he wrapped his arms around Ichigo's boney back and kissed him passionately.

"I was a wreck without you," he gasped between kisses. "There could never-... be another-... I never moved on. I love you… I'll always love you-"

Ichigo breathed heavily, face dusted pink from excitement. With little ado, he grabbed Renji's boxers and yanked them down, immediately grabbing his erection, hard enough to make Renji spasm.

"Ahh," Renji gasped, watching Ichigo bring his head down. Ichigo suddenly stopped, letting go and backing off. "Whatsa' matter?"

Ichigo pointed to his mouth and shook his head. Then he pointed to Renji and made a disgusted facial expression. Renji grabbed him, kicking his underwear all the way off. "Aw, Ichigo, c'mon... I don't think you're gross." He could see how Ichigo might think he wouldn't want to kiss someone whose tongue was half-gone, or not wanting to receive oral from them. To tell the truth, the idea wasn't very appealing to Renji, but it wasn't like it was Ichigo's fault, so it upset Renji that Ichigo should feel ashamed for what some sicko had done.

"It'll be okay, if… I mean, you don't have to, I get it…" Ichigo sighed and lay against him for a moment, eyes saying to Renji that he had always known there was a reason he'd fallen for him.

He just pointed to himself with a smile, rolling onto his back. Renji eagerly got inbetween his legs and spat into his palm, rubbing his thumb over Ichigo's entrance. After a few minutes of testing, Renji made Ichigo roll over onto his knees and immediately grabbed him by the thighs, carting him up to his face.

"Wai', wai'," Ichigo tried to stop him, but it didn't keep Renji from making an obscene noise and beginning to ravish Ichigo's backside. The noise Ichigo made almost sounded like pain from the way he tried to cut it off, and soon Ichigo was a trembling mess, practically crying from the movements of Renji's tongue. He took his time, hoping somehow that this could make up for a tiny bit of the pain that these people had caused Ichigo. Whenever he'd done this in the past, it had always turned Ichigo into a puddle of mush. Still, he remembered it taking a bit longer.

"Ahh," Renji moaned breathily, reaching around to grab Ichigo's erection, squeezing teasingly. Ichigo gasped and exhaled through gritted teeth. Renji pressed a teasing kiss against him, testing him further with his fingers. Ichigo began kicking him a little, making a noise and pointing like he wanted Renji to just get started already. "Okay."

Renji took himself in hand, stroking a couple times, getting up behind Ichigo. Something stayed his hand, making him pause, looking at Ichigo shuddering beneath him. He backed off and gently ghosted his hands over the pronounced ridge of his spine and then up his boney sides, helping him turn over. Ichigo was like a pile of jelly after that. Maybe Grimmjow never cared much about Ichigo's pleasure or something, or maybe it had just been so long that Ichigo couldn't take it.

"Here, just lay like this. I can't make love to you without bein' able ta' kiss you, stupid," Renji mumbled enthusiastically, leaning down quickly to place a quick peck on those smiling lips. Ichigo eagerly wrapped his legs up around Renji's hips as he got into position.

After spitting in his hand a few times, he reached down and stroked himself for a second, lining up and pressing forward slowly. Ichigo didn't flinch in any sort of pain, not even making a sound as he sank in a few inches. Renji moaned lowly at the warm tight sensation that he'd almost completely forgotten. It had been so long since he'd last had sex.

This was where he was supposed to be. Everything was starting to go right. Ichigo was here in his arms and they were finally together again. The smaller man was holding his face, pulling him down the last few inches for a passionate kiss. Renji let go of his hips and wrapped his arms around Ichigo's back, holding him tight as they kissed, not letting even an inch of air survive between their bodies.

Part of Renji's mind was bugging him and saying that Ichigo shouldn't be so used to being penetrated. As far as he could remember, even when he spent over ten minutes preparing Ichigo, he would still need at least a few moments to adjust to the intrusion of Renji finally going inside. Perhaps Ichigo had gotten used to the pain, or maybe didn't feel it at all at this point. He'd had enough experience to finally be able to relax at will.

He ached for Ichigo and all the hell he'd gone through, so he let Ichigo hold him tight and rock his hips against his. For a few moments they simply rolled around and kissed each other like they could only breathe if their mouths were connected, grinding on each other like they would die if one of them pulled back.

Finally, after about two more minutes of fooling around, they rolled each other over and left Renji on his back, Ichigo straddling him like he never had back when they'd been together. Ichigo had never been very confident in bed, but Renji knew that things were different now. A man like Grimmjow would surely want a show. As much as Renji was upset that Ichigo had been forced to 'hone' his skills, he let Ichigo pin him down with his feet and hold his arms down, aroused by the illusion of someone being able to overpower him. Being with Ichigo had always been like that, both of them strong enough to handle each other's shouting and shoving, both of them generous enough to let up and make sacrifices for each other.

Ichigo curled his hips down onto his like a pro, kissing Renji to the point where his vision was fuzzing a little. "Ohh," he moaned lowly, just laying there and letting Ichigo sit down on him heavily over and over. Eventually he rolled them over again and kissed Ichigo for a few more minutes, stroking through his hair and sucking down the side of his neck.

Then he finally pulled one of Ichigo's legs into each hand, hiking him closer, starting to thrust in. Ichigo could hardly take it by then, gasping and shaking all over at the slow deep rhythm. Renji just marveled at Ichigo's beauty, cupping his face in his hands and kissing him softly, moving his hips slowly but with enough power to make Ichigo limp and floppy.

"I never thought I'd get to do this again with you," Renji whispered onto Ichigo's lips, kissing him again, letting Ichigo wrap his arms around his shoulders, undulating his hips a little to get Renji to go faster. Ichigo seemed desperate for him to snap like Grimmjow and fuck him hard and rough, but Renji wouldn't give in, insisting on dragging it out as long as he could, practically torturing Ichigo with how good it felt. Grimmjow was skilled, but when they were in bed together it was about Ichigo servicing him. The man often didn't have the patience to pleasure Ichigo. After three years of going to bed sore and stiff, Renji's hands felt like magic to Ichigo.

"Ahh- AH!" Ichigo whined loudly, shoving Renji back a little when their bodies being pressed together was too much for his sensitive parts. He was a little sore from aftershocks, it seemed. Renji backed off, letting Ichigo lay there in an imprint of his own sweat, glad for a little break. Ichigo wiped at the cum on his stomach, still painfully hard. He squirmed over to Renji after a moment, laying his hot head down on Renji's sweaty belly, putting an arm around him. Renji ran a hand through Ichigo's muggy hair, liking how the angle he was at gave him a perfect view down Ichigo's slim side, from his shoulder all the way down to his ankle.

"Hey," Renji said softly, petting Ichigo's head still. Ichigo let his head fall to the side a little, glancing up with a little noise. "I love you, you fucking loser," Renji said, half-choked up. Ichigo gave a laugh, a little sad laugh as he remembered that Renji had said that the day he'd confessed his love to him. It had become the catchphrase of their relationship, a sort of symbol of the peak of their happiness.

Ichigo laughed again, and soon he couldn't stop laughing, and at some point he wasn't sure if he was crying or laughing still, but Renji was inside him again and making love to him like he had all those years ago, making him feel more important than anyone in the world. He'd sacrificed his freedom and his body for Renji, and at this moment he would do it again, hell, he'd do it again a thousand times. He would die for Renji, he would suffer for Renji, he loved Renji like nothing else in the world.

Renji was wiping his face, and the wetness on his hands could've been sweat or tears at that point, but Ichigo didn't care, trying to force his heart ache out through his eyes as Renji held him. There was nothing but the two of them, and he could see that now. Being away had been so painful, a sacrifice he'd been willing to make, but oh, how it had hurt.

He was so glad that it had been worth it, that it had paid off, that Renji had seen the light and was finally ready to move on from his bad past. Their lives could be happy. They could really have that future with a house and a family and normal jobs. He'd used to joke to Renji that the day he'd let them get married would be the day he died, but he'd found that was something he wanted now. He wanted Renji to be in his life, to never go away, to always be there. He wanted them to really be family.

"Don't cry," Renji murmured, kissing his tears. Ichigo hadn't realized that he'd actually started crying, but as soon as Renji mentioned it, he found that he could hardly stop.

"H-" Ichigo gasped, hiccuping a little as Renji rocked his hips so gently against him, in a way so passionate that Grimmjow would never have been able to match it, even with his immense bedroom prowess. "I'm happy," he choked out, causing Renji to make a pitiful noise.

"You're happy?… Me too," he whispered, kissing him again and again until the pleasure started to mount. Ichigo gasped and clung to Renji's sweaty body, begging him in a wordless babble-talk to go faster, for him to go harder, that he was close, that he had to let the pressure out.

Renji started to groan, deeper and deeper, sitting back a little so he could look down and watch himself disappear inside of Ichigo like he thought he'd never be able to again. "Ohh," he gasped, thrusting hard enough to make a slapping sound every time their sweaty hips met.

Ichigo let out a high-pitched whine, jerking himself off desperately, loving the pounding of feeling Renji inside of him. It was different than Grimmjow; Renji probably couldn't beat Grimmjow in a size competition, but it was somehow more comfortable to do this with him than Grimmjow. Grimmjow had skill, but Renji had familiarity, genuine emotion, trust and loyalty, and that was all Ichigo wanted. Renji's kisses were real tokens of affection, while Grimmjow's were just reflex.

Renji met his eyes and told him he loved him again, a promise that he'd repeated since the day they'd first kissed. Ichigo's eyes fluttered and he came all over his stomach.

Renji groaned, holding his hips, thrusting faster when Ichigo started to clench up around him. He bit his lip, breathing hard, hoping he wasn't being too rough as he finally went over the edge, pushing in as deep as he could before he came. "Hh… Ichigo," he whispered shakily.

He panted, staying still for a moment, just relishing in the complete feeling, enjoying the satisfaction before he flopped down next to Ichigo with a deep sigh of pleasure.

Ichigo gave a yawn, snuggling up to him on the rumpled sweaty sheets, head resting on his shoulder. He whined in irritation, half-sitting up to look down at Renji's drenched armpits, insisting with a wordless sound of mock-revulsion that he move his arm so that his head rested on his shoulder and not that disgusting sweat vat. Ichigo couldn't say it aloud, but Renji could hear it like they were still high-school rivals.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Renji muttered, catching Ichigo's smile, glad that they still had some way of talking to each other. "... Love you, Dandelion."

"Mhm," Ichigo hummed, closing his eyes, laying there with him in their own filth for about five minutes, letting their sweat dry and their hearts slow. Renji gently traced circles on Ichigo's arm where his hand had ended up, idly stroking him and his hair as he lay there enjoying the heaviness that had crept through his pleasure-lax body.

"Hey," Renji mumbled, jiggling Ichigo a little to test if he was asleep. "Don't fall asleep." They couldn't be found here. If they were going to leave this place, it needed to be a clean break with no evidence left behind.

"A'righ'," Ichigo said with a yawn, sitting up. He scootched to the side of the bed, and to Renji's surprise, he didn't have any trouble walking, even though he could remember Ichigo always being completely boneless after they did it. Ichigo got up naked and walked around to where his pants had ended up, grabbing his little notepad. Renji grinned and held out his arms eagerly when Ichigo came back, glad to know that he wouldn't leave just yet. Ichigo cuddled up into his embrace like there hadn't been a day between them, half-laying on his chest as he held out the notepad and wrote to him.

' _Hey. You're hot.'_

Renji just snorted, and Ichigo grinned in response, pressing their cheeks together while they snuggled. They kissed for a little while, holding hands like saps as Renji told little stupid stories about their friends from back home.

"Hey, I think we should move."

"Hm?" Ichigo asked curiously.  _'Why? I don't want to get up yet.'_

Renji lightly swatted him over the head, starting a poking war with him, laughing to himself as he lay Ichigo down and hovered over him, kissing him. He propped his head up on his hand, leaning on his elbow as he lay on his side next to Ichigo. "I didn't mean from this spot, stupid, I mean I think we should move away from Drake's Glen."

"Oh," Ichigo said. After blinking a couple of times, he smiled, using Renji's chest as a flat spot to set his notepad as he wrote. ' _We can go on a road trip and see the countryside like we always wanted. We'll take Ikkaku and get away from here.'_

"Sounds like a plan, babe."

' _I'm full of good plans.'_

"Hm, You're full of shit? Don't write about yourself that way." Ichigo just growled, shoving the paper pad in his face to make him read it the right way. Renji just laughed and let Ichigo grab him and wrestle him for a little while. He'd missed this so much.

After about half an hour of shameless snuggling and telling Ichigo jokes, Renji settled down, seeing that Ichigo wanted to talk about something serious.

' _I really hope you don't blame yourself.'_

Renji was silent for a few moments, tracing aimless patterns on Ichigo's scalp, pulling gently on his hair in a way that had Ichigo shivering from the tingles. He scootched his legs up a little, holding Ichigo next to him so that his orange head could lay on his shoulder. "The fact is… If you'd never met me, you wouldn't be suffering right now."

Ichigo just stared blankly ahead for a moment, exhaling sharply and clenching up his chest and gut like that had hurt him to hear. He swallowed unsteadily and with a slightly shaking hand, slowly wrote.

' _Renji, have you ever been able to see fate's path,'_ Renji watched him write, settling his head against Ichigo's like they were still at home together on the couch or their bed watching television in their tiny apartment. ' _-and it started to feel like nothing you did could change it?'_

"That does kinda' sound like my fucked-up life. I'd like to blame it on fate, but this is probably all my own idiotic fault, huh?" Ichigo ignored him.

' _And the,'_ Ichigo grumbled a little, scribbling that out, starting over. ' _Imagine that you were suddenly able to change it. What if you were given a choice? What would happen if you were handed the power to change fate's path?'_

Renji's heart started to tighten up, some sort of warning signal blaring in the background. After a few silent tense seconds, he spoke, "Why are you telling me this, Ichigo?"

Ichigo swallowed again with difficulty, breathing unsteadily.  _'I was handed that power.'_ He stopped for a few seconds, pencil trembling in his grasp. Renji was growing concerned, because Ichigo looked like he was going to throw up. ' _I knew what would happen if I didn't act, and I made a choice to do something.'_

"But it ended up hurting you to interfere."

' _That's not the point. The choice was all that mattered.'_

"But why would you do something like that?..." Renji fisted his hands in his own hair, chest aching intensely. "Who cares about fate? All of this… all of your suffering is because of me."

"Iya!" Ichigo shouted suddenly in Japanese, which he rarely did, hitting him in the chest to shut him up. Renji did, knowing that to say things like that was to make light of Ichigo's sacrifice. It was ungrateful and horribly selfish when Ichigo had given so much for his sake. Ichigo had known that he would suffer for his choice and had done it anyway. It was shitty to feel guilty about something like that.

Ichigo scowled but kept writing, ' _That was MY choice. Don't say stuff like that, stupid, like I didn't know what I was doing. I did it on purpose. It's like everyone else, how I can't stand not to help them. If I was to know that you were going to die, how could you expect me to do anything but try to stop that, even if it was fate?'_

Renji couldn't speak, just wrapping his arms around Ichigo tighter, some sort of fear creeping through his gut, as if that idiotic cruel fate was going to come back and take Ichigo away again.

' _And I thought,'_  Ichigo paused again,  _'If I wasn't strong enough to convince you to come away from that life, then I wanted power to change what would happen to you. I didn't want to live knowing that you were dead when I could've done something. There was an opening and I took it. It's like cheating death. They can toss me around and treat me how they want now, but I have the power. I got what I wanted, and that's you, here, alive.'_

"Ichigo," Renji whined, clinging to him. "You fucker, you stupid fucker, I hate when you do shit like that. I can't believe you. Fuck you...  _fuck_ you. This is screwing me up, man. You know how guilt drives me insane, I can't stand this-"

Ichigo shook his head, swallowing again and taking a calming breath, turning to him a little in his arms. He set their foreheads together and just rubbed a thumb over the back of Renji's neck soothingly. Renji immediately felt peace flood through him, and the afterglow of their lovemaking returned. There was no need for guilt. Ichigo had known what he was undertaking when he'd made that sacrifice, and he'd decided that it was a worthy one to make. His sacrifice had paid off: they were together now, and that was what mattered. Renji had always respected Ichigo's judgement, and even though the consequences were harsh, he probably would have done the same thing, had their positions been reversed.

So he cuddled Ichigo for a few more minutes, gave him a good-night kiss, helped him back into his clothes, and saw him off. Sleeping in his own bed wasn't so lonely when he could smell them mixed together, when he could lay there in the warm patch where they had lain together. Everything was alright. Tomorrow they could go and leave all of this behind.

It wasn't as if they were trapped in some horrible mafia crossfire that he knew nothing of. He'd left all that behind, hadn't he? Besides, Aizen seemed like a nice normal guy. Everything would be okay. They'd get their stuff together at dusk tomorrow, knock Ikkaku out, throw him in the back of the pick-up, and then they'd drive the fuck out of here and start new lives. It was simple, really. These people weren't cops, they weren't wolves; he and Ichigo could just leave.

Renji knew that he probably should've done a bit more research and asked Ichigo more about what exactly was going on in this house with Aizen and these other bad people, but all he'd been focused on was making dreamy eyes at his lost-sweetheart. Still, even if they were crime-lords, Renji had experience with those too. It would be fine. No need to worry. They'd go before anyone could ask questions. The plan was simple, although Ichigo had to question why they didn't just leave now. Ichigo had wanted to leave tonight, but Renji sensibly noted that he needed to collect his paycheck the following day, or they'd run out of gas.

Yes, they'd go, they'd go and start new lives, get new names if they had to. He'd take out some loans to cover any medical procedures Ichigo needed, even if it left them penniless. He would  _not_  let Ichigo suffer with this any longer.

They'd get an apartment in a nice neighborhood, Renji would look for work in a respectable place, and they could see about contacting Ichigo's family. They could even split rent with Ikkaku for a while, just as long as they were safe and together. Everything would be fine. It wasn't too late for a new start.

Things would be wonderful. He'd been a given second chance for a reason.

Renji smiled, digging his face into his sweet-smelling pillow. Things were finally starting to go right.

* * *

_One day we'll all be ghosts  
_ _Trippin' around in someone else's home  
_ _One day we'll all be ghosts, ghosts, ghosts  
_ _Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts_


	6. Chapter 6

_There's a ghost in me  
_ _Who wants to say I'm sorry  
_ _Doesn't mean I'm sorry_

* * *

If they'd had the time or ability to argue over where things had gone wrong, they would have done so extensively. Ichigo would have insisted that they should've left early like he'd suggested, while Renji would retort that their plan had been good, that the plan wasn't the problem, that it was this nuthouse they were working at that was to blame.

They would have stuck to the plan if they had been able to; they would have played innocent until Renji got their paychecks and tried to find Ichigo's contract so they could burn it, and then they would've torn the crap out of there. But none of that happened, no, not yet. They weren't even yet aware that their plan had already failed. They were both asleep and dreaming of sugarplums, as they say.

All the same, when loud noises from somewhere within the house reached his ears, Renji awoke mid-dream and got up.

Wondering sleepily whether someone was trying to break into his apartment again, Renji quickly came to his senses and sat up in bed, realizing that he wasn't still living in the inner city. No, it wasn't a break in. Someone was up late and messing with shit down the hall.

He jumped when he heard glass breaking and the sound of a body hitting a wall  _hard._  This probably had to do with Aizen. The guy seemed pretty normal and junk, but there was something in his eyes that told Renji he was a nutjob.

Having taken some of his tools with him in the case of defense, Renji held a hammer aloft as he crept silently down the hallway in socked-feet. He went slowly and carefully, putting one arm against the wall, letting it glide over the detailed wallpaper. Renji still didn't know the layout of the house very well, so it took him a while to navigate the maze of hallways and doors. Whenever he was sure that he'd nearly reached the source of the struggle, he was thrown for a loop by coming to a dead-end or a locked door.

Being careful not to slip and break something in the dark, he stood as close to the wall as he could so he could avoid squeaky floorboards. He was glad when he made it to a carpeted section of hall.

By now he could hear laughter, along with crashing noises and breaking glass, and suddenly he realized which room it was all coming from, seeing light from underneath a door. Immediately, he ducked and pressed himself flat to the wall, edging closer to the door. He slid closer until he was sitting only a few feet away from the doorway, back against the same wall. Renji didn't think about peeking inside the door yet, so he just crept closer to it so he could listen, looking in the opposite direction.

Staring dead-across the hall, he noticed a portrait of a man whose left eye was illuminated because of the slit of light coming from the room next to him. The door was just barely ajar, almost as if it was left that way on purpose. It was just  _waiting_  for someone to come and peep.

Finally the garbled voices from before made sense, and he could decipher individual words through the din.

"-for what you did to her, Aizen-sama." That voice sounded so haggard, but it was twisted with bitter rage.

Swallowing hard, Renji scootched closer, pressing his ear to the wall for a few seconds. Struggling to breathe quietly, he tried to calm his pounding heart as he knelt down and crawled even closer. He knew he shouldn't be doing this. He couldn't get involved in this mafia shit again, but his curiosity wouldn't let him leave. After a moment of indecision, he assured himself that if things went even slightly bad, he was getting Ichigo up and they were leaving  _now._

Finally, he put his eye up to the sliver of light in the doorway.

He didn't have time to notice very much. It was a large room with an ornate rug and a grand piano by the back wall. His limited field of vision provided him with just enough that he saw the figure of a thin man standing with his back to the door on an angle, doubled over and panting. Further back, he could just barely see the person, but he recognized the voice right away as it continued on.

"Oh dear. I suppose I shall have to use force."

Before Renji could fully process what was happening, there was a clicking noise and then something exploded, ripping through the wall and planting itself in the far wall of the hallway. Renji jumped a few inches back, startled, cupping his ears in shock at the volume.

A second passed… Another… Another…

Wait...

That had been a  _gunshot_ , hadn't it.

His blood ran cold, eyes widening, looking hopelessly back at the hole in the fancy wallpaper where the bullet had hit. Renji scrambled to look through the door again, just in time to see the silver-haired man crumple to the floor. He swore that the guy's squinted eyes met his just before he fell to his knees. The man was holding his chest and looking at the blood on his hands in surprise. Blood immediately began to well up in his mouth and spill out over down his chin.

It all happened in the span of two seconds, and just after that, Renji heard a tearful gasp. He hadn't noticed that Matsumoto, the buxom pretty maid, had been in the room at all, but there she was, sobbing and clutching the man's body, begging for him to open his eyes.

Aizen had just shot his business partner dead. That was it. Screw everything. Renji was getting Ichigo, and they were getting the fuck out of here.

Then Renji heard a distant scream. He backed away from the door in fright, sick in the pit of his stomach after watching a man die like that. That horrible eye contact that they'd made during Ichimaru's moment of death had put some sort of weight on his soul. He backed away, his city instincts returning in an instant. He couldn't be caught here peeping on what was surely a mafia-death scenario. He and Ichigo needed to get out of here,  _right now._

After another few moments, the panicked screaming came again, and Renji immediately recognized it, tearing off down the hallway. As he did so, practically breaking his own nose trying to get down the stairs, he started seeing crumpled sheets of paper lying in what almost seemed like a trail. Snatching one up, he read as he ran.

They were Ichigo's notes to him, any and everything Ichigo had written to him while he was here. Suddenly, the trail ran cold and Renji read the last note: ' _Because I love you.'_

Then there came some distant yelling and racket coinciding with Ichigo's screaming. Grimmjow had found out. That hadn't taken him long.

* * *

Ikkaku felt like he was swimming, swimming endlessly in the deepest and darkest of oceans. There were no fish, no plants, no sea floor. He was just suspended in the icy-cold water, limbs numb and stiff. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here or why he was drowning, why it was so cold when it was the middle of summer.

His heart was working overtime and holding his breath had long since passed being uncomfortable. It was  _agony._  Swimming in open water had always been an irrational fear of his, but he wasn't focusing on that, no, he had to keep kicking, he had to get to the air. The only thing he could see was some sort of light far in the distance… the surface. It didn't seem to be growing any closer, and a second later his lungs gave out, forcing him to inhale a mouthful of water, which caused him to immediately panic.

All of a sudden, Yumichika let go and he was coughing hard, gasping and falling to his knees.

"I told you that you couldn't do it. A mortal can't just cross the spiritual plane like that. It's in your nature to live. Your body won't let you leave like that, no matter how much discipline you think you have." Yumichika sounded so damned smug, and Ikkaku could only think that that had to be Yumichika's way of trying to motivate him to try harder. He knew that Ikkaku would do anything to protect his pride, to prove him wrong.

"Give up yet?" he asked with a sour grin, playing with his nails like he didn't care that Ikkaku was nearly hacking up his lungs.

"No. I'm not scared," Ikkaku insisted, struggling to his feet on shaky legs, knees knocking and teeth chattering. His hands were freezing and his gut was clenched tight in fear, but he did not give in. "Again. Do it again. I can do it."

"You can't do this, Ikkaku. It is a hopeless effort."

"Let me try again." Yumichika's face fell, hurt for one moment, the next masked with rage.

Instead of spitting some insult, Yumichika just glared at him. Once again his hand glowed brightly and slammed back inside of Ikkaku's chest.

"Ah!" he cried in pain, vision darkening again until he was back in the Mariana trench, choking slowly, drowning, drowning endlessly as the minutes rolled by. No matter how hard he kicked, he couldn't get to the surface. He didn't see any way out of this scenario. What was he supposed to do? Just hang there and let himself drown?

The impulse to grab at his throat and struggle was almost unbearable as his lungs started filling with water, but he lay there still, letting the ocean hold him as he watched his last bit of air come out of his mouth and float upwards, twinkling in the distance.

His chest was aching but he forced it to relax, just closing his eyes and flexing his fingers through the cold water.

Suddenly, there was nothing. It was hard to explain, even in the privacy of his own mind. There really was nothing, no pull in his chest telling him that he'd stopped breathing, no urge to inhale, no fear, no sensory input whatsoever. He didn't even have any proof that he was still attached to his own body. Where was he? Had he closed his eyes?

Then he felt it, Yumichika's hand on his face, gently thumbing at his eyelids to make him open them. His hand was warm and soft… wait,  _warm?_

"What? Wh-" Where was he? What the hell had just happened? Fear spread through him so intense and so quick that his hands were quivering like leaves. Now that he could breathe again, he was hyperventilating, gasping over and over, trying to get a hold of himself. He felt like the devil was on his tail, like someone was about to cut his head off. "What ha-"

"Sh," Yumichika said, cutting off his pitiful attempts at speaking. Ikkaku looked up at him in wonder, seeing Yumichika's beautiful black hair shining in the light of three different suns, his violet eyes glittering in the shade that was neither night nor day, his cream-colored skin that he'd almost forgotten. Yumichika held out a hand and Ikkaku took it out of reflex, letting Yumichika help him to his feet. Ikkaku had to marvel at the strength in Yumichika's arm, still clutching his own chest tight with one hand.

His eyes didn't want to stray from Yumichika's restored beauty, but they floated off for a moment, immediately taken by the surroundings. It was a seemingly endless plane. They were surrounded by ragweed and wheat on all sides. There were hills in the distance with what looked like buildings. Something was different, something was off somehow. Something was  _wrong_.

There was no pull in his chest telling him to breathe, there was no comforting beat of his own heart, there was no feeling of solidity to anything even though he could touch it. It was hard to comprehend.

With every small step and adjustment he made on the ground with his bare feet, he could feel energy shooting up from the core of the spiritual plane, spreading through his body like fire. He could see layers, different worlds, and horrible creatures in every directions. It was almost too much to process.

Yumichika took his hand and snapped his fingers, and suddenly Ikkaku was dragged forward through some sort of barrier. Immediately he recognized the cemetery he'd been standing in only a few moments ago.

"How do you feel?" Yumichika asked in wary concern, looking at him with cautious eyes. Ikkaku gave a tentative smile, looking around with wonder. Everything was made of pure energy, each leaf see-through, every living soul in the distance visible like a flickering candle. His feet were going through the ground easily. Nothing here in the material plane was real except for them. Yumichika had to help him stand to keep him from falling through the fake-ground. Floating was harder than it looked. "Are you okay?"

"That wasn't so-" Ikkaku's eyes fell on the ground, and he immediately screamed in horror.

That was his body on the ground.

Immediately, he began freaking out, letting go of Yumichika's hand and getting down on his knees with a huge lurch. The ground wasn't real anymore. He was just hanging over nothing, eyes seeing grass, but not receiving any support against his feet. He hadn't known what he'd expected to happen, but for some reason, the thought of leaving his body behind hadn't occurred to him, and all of a sudden all of the energy was too much, all of the stimuli and the thoughts of dying were consuming him, turning his hands black.

Yumichika had a smug knowing look on his face, but Ikkaku couldn't pay attention to that.

Ikkaku was screaming his head off, trying to grab himself by the shoulders and wake himself up, desperately trying to get back in. He must've started crying or something, because Yumichika took pity on him and helped him. Well, when he said helped, he meant 'punched him so hard that he accidentally got back in his body'.

Everything was rushing backwards and he saw a thousand different worlds in a split second. The only thing that was real was Yumichika's hand fisted inside his chest, dragging his soul flame back to the material plane.

With a huge shuddering gasp, his eyes opened and he sat up unsteadily. After a huge brain rush that lasted a full ten seconds, he lurched forward, nearly puking right onto the grass. His head was rolling in little circles, and he felt his cheeks, fingers numb. It didn't feel like his own face anymore. This was so weird.

When he pulled his fingers back, they were wet and tingling. He looked up to Yumichika in panic as if he'd never seen him before. "What the hell was that?" he asked, throat really dry, lungs aching.

"You were dead for a minute there. This isn't some far off fantasy, Ikkaku. Saying you're not scared is easy if you think that it won't really happen. This stuff is  _real._ What you just did… Following me means leaving earth behind, leaving your friends, your body… everything. I guess your spirit's got enough will that it can cross the rift. You really could follow me. That's  _real_ , Ikkaku."

Ikkaku looked up, eyes wide and blank as his mind went over the possibility. It was hard to think straight, and he understood now that it was because his brain really hadn't gotten any oxygen for a while there. His heart had stopped. When he'd gone with Yumichika, his body had died. His soul had… That must've…

Ikkaku hadn't thought this through enough beforehand. Yumichika hadn't wanted to explain too much, insisting that it was too much for a living person's brain to take. Ikkaku had suspected that it was because Yumichika was trying to protect him from something, and of course, he couldn't have anyone thinking he was weak. It hadn't occurred to him what coming into the spirit world would really mean.

Yumichika had taken his soul out. That ocean had been his consciousness trying to cross the threshold into the next dimensional plane. _He'd really died._

"Does that make me a zombie?" Ikkaku asked cautiously, flexing his fingers. It was still hard to make precise movements, and his extremities were tingling, having fallen asleep. He suddenly became paranoid that he was living in a dying body. Was he going to start rotting or something?

"No," Yumichika said airily, making light of Ikkaku's untimely death. He seemed to be enjoying this for some sick reason. "Think of getting back in as defibrillation." He jokingly rubbed his hands together and said 'clear'. Ikkaku grinned, but the serious mood took him over again pretty quickly. That had been fucking  _scary._

"Getting back in my body?"

"Yes. It takes about five minutes for the brain to start irreversibly dying, and even then your body could survive by being hooked up to machines. Amazing stuff, really. I did warn you that going to the spiritual plane has risks," Yumichika said quickly, pointing at him to make sure that they were on the same page, that the blame wouldn't fall on his head. "Even being there for a few moments… I don't know what side effects that might have on you. You might lose your mind," he said with a grimace. "Once you go there, you're not meant to leave, since we're only supposed to go there after we die and then remain there forever. If something bad happens, don't make me say 'I told you so.'"

"That was… how did you learn to do that?" Ikkaku asked morbidly. Yumichika looked surprised, as if that wasn't the question he'd expected him to ask.

"Hm… I don't know. It just… came to me, I guess," Yumichika mumbled. "I told you this was a hopeless effort. You're not meant to follow me this way… This is a bad idea. Your mental state is at serious risk."

"Is it like being possessed?"

"No, not quite."

"Wait, so if I died in some other way, I could follow you?" Ikkaku asked. Yumichika immediately went off on him again, threatening him with bodily harm if he dared even think about killing himself.

"I've already lost Kaa like that, and if you… No, you'd- I'll-" Yumichika was starting to get really upset, swelling with rage. Ikkaku assured him that he was just being hypothetical, calming him by holding his hands up in surrender. Yumichika seemed to be pacified by that, still looking at him somewhat suspiciously.

"Well okay… Besides, you're too chicken anyway. It's easy for you to talk about death like that when you have no idea about it. The moment you started to suffer, you became afraid. That's why it took you so many tries to cross the barrier… That's why you started falling apart when you saw your own body. It's not right, Ikkaku."

"I wasn't scared," Ikkaku mumbled resentfully.

"Right," Yumichika answered absently, as if he wasn't really listening.

"I  _wasn't!_ "

"Right, I said alright, Ikkaku," Yumichika answered, fiddling with his fingers like a little kid who had knowingly been caught doing something bad. "I think it's time we had a serious talk. Remember when I was gone for a whole day that one time?"

"Yeah." Ikkaku had just figured that Yumichika was taking care of some ghost business or something, playing around in that lake. Maybe he'd been actually doing something important.

"Most spirits are low-level and very stupid… or, not stupid… more passive than anything, I suppose. They just sort of drift along. Anyways, it's getting easier for me to fool them and cross the rift as much as I want without being caught."

"So you were, what… Hangin' around in a ghost town or something?"

"Sort of. I was reading up in the soul library. That place is  _huge…_  There's a copy of anything ever written in the history of any dimension. Needless to say, I found something quite interesting about alternate realities. It was something like… a 'death manual' on haunting mortals. Most of it was garbage, but I did find something noteworthy."

"Okay, lay it on me," Ikkaku said, wiping his forehead, stretching his legs out, letting Yumichika float down to settle next to him. He was still trying to recover from his scare, heart just beginning to slow down. His mind was starting to recite his reasons to live in the background of his thoughts. Suddenly, life seemed like such a good option.

"I don't think you understand," Yumichika said seriously when Ikkaku said that so casually. "This is confusing stuff that is almost impossible to fully grasp until after you die. It's like what I said about living people being unable to comprehend the spiritual plane properly because of their basal energy type. You're not supposed to know any of this, but I'll try to make it make sense. Just listen carefully."

"Okay."

Yumichika gave a sigh, leaning against him a little. Ikkaku edged away, still a little antsy. Yumichika thrummed his fingers over his mouth, wondering how to start. "Have you ever thought back to some event in your life that you wish you could've changed, and then you think about the possibilities and the effect of that event being changed… like how it would affect the rest of your life?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Ikkaku mumbled, thinking of a few different key events that had flushed his life down the toilet. He would've finished high school, he would've read books, he would've helped his community. He wouldn't have done drugs, he wouldn't have been in a street gang, he wouldn't have done a  _lot_  of things. He would've… he would've saved Yumichika from dying. "Everyone has regrets," he said quietly, looking down at his lap pitifully.

"Well that's the theory of all this," Yumichika explained, choosing his words carefully. When he was silent for a while, Ikkaku looked up in confusion. "I'm sorry, it's just… Time travel and the like… It just gets so convoluted. I'm trying to think of how to explain it."

"How about you explain the dimensional reality crap that you were talking about?"

"Alright," Yumichika sighed, "Good place to start." Ikkaku picked a little clover flower off the ground and held it out for Yumichika, who pretended to smell it.

"Okay, lets go back to one of those events that you thought about changing or preventing. Those possibilities that we just mentioned and the effect they would have on your future… an alternate dimension exists for that reality. Actually, one exists for every single possibility in existence."

Ikkaku tried to think of a number for a moment, how many that would be, trying to grasp the magnitude of it. All it did was make his head hurt.

Yumichika went on, eyes glazing over as he splayed his hands out, looking off into the distance of some other world. "The future has already happened. Trillions of versions of your life have already been led, you have already died, you've been born again, and it's all happened…  _happening_  at the same moment. Therefore, the future and past don't exist.  _Time_  doesn't exist. All that there is, is this moment right now."

Ikkaku didn't know what to say, just listening to Yumichika's passionate voice. It sounded stupid, and Ikkaku didn't know how that could be true, but maybe this had been what Yumichika meant by living people being unable to understand. It was probably a hard thing to describe.

"If that is true, and it is, then fate...  _There is no such thing as fate_ , because every single decision that you've made or could have made has already been accounted for. The possibilities are boundless. The only thing that limits you is your own choices, and really, that only shapes the reality that your consciousness is currently residing in. Your choices mean nothing and everything at the same time."

Ikkaku just stared back at him, following along as well as he could. He understood most of it, but Yumichika was talking kind of fast, so he had to listen hard. Yumichika sighed, thinking that he'd lost him.

"It's like one of those time travel scenarios that turns into an endless paradox. If you went back in time to stop yourself from doing something, then you'd never have to send yourself back, but then you would… going on forever... Just think, if time travel were ever to exist in the future,  _your life right now_  is a result of someone time traveling and changing something. You'd never know the difference."

"Woah," Ikkaku said, slightly stunned at the new perspective of all this. "I'd never thought of that."

"Your life at this moment is the result of choices you made in the past. So if you were to change one of your decisions in the past, your future would change as well, and as a result, you'd be living a life other than this one. Therefore, this life no longer exists."

"But if I'm here then-"

"Mortal human souls have a very fragile perception of time, don't strain your brain," Yumichika shushed him, putting his transparent hand over Ikkaku's mouth, which really had no effect. Ikkaku went quiet for the sake of listening.

"Alright, now we come to the sticky part…" Yumichika mumbled. "When you die, your soul gets to make a very important decision. It's almost like a wish, but not a conscious one. You don't get to think beforehand. Your desire at the moment of your death is played out, whether you like it or not. You are thrown into multiple versions of your reality to view a few possibilities, before your soul is condensed and sent on. You may not even be aware of it. For all you know, it might be happening right now. You might be dead and are having a wonderful dream."

Ikkaku put his hands up, pointing inanely as he tried to make sense of this. So if his realities were endlessly looping and replaying, how could he actually die? Did that mean there was no afterlife? Was this like Hindi karma? But then how was Yumichika here to talk to him? What point would a wish have if he'd already lived every reality possible? This was just turning his brain into a pile of…  _muck_.

"So… Wait, what was  _your_  wish-"

"Sh," Yumichika said. "This isn't my reality, it's yours. Nothing is real except for you."

"But y-" Ikkaku started getting frustrated. Hopefully, Yumichika had just said that to help simplify things. The only person who is real in their life is themselves? That somehow made sense, because consciousness can only reside in one person at a time. It was hard to see humanity on a large scale when you were trapped in one little body.

Maybe what Yumichika meant was… He was the only thing that he could  _change._  He couldn't change anyone else's decisions, but his own, he  _could_. That was real. That made him the only real thing in his world.

"But then, how-"

"Sh," Yumichika said again. "Don't over-think it. All dimensions link at one point, so travel between them is possible. In fact, it's possible for you to exist in every dimension at the same time… which is why other people exist. The universe is basically an insanely elaborate web. When I said that about only you being real, I didn't mean that you're crazy. I'm really here, you idiot, see?" He waved his hand through the grass, and Ikkaku could clearly see it move. "Geez, give me some credit. This is hard to explain… So stop interrupting," he said sharply.

"Okay." If it wasn't important, Yumichika wouldn't bother telling him this, so he clammed up, not pointing out the loopholes and weird loose ends that Yumichika's explanations were providing. Maybe it wasn't supposed to make sense. That was what made it so amazing.

"You'll be thrown back to some part of your past, or maybe some future moment that you don't remember experiencing yet… You'll be given the chance to change things, to live out another life of yours. Low level spirits don't realize, because their spiritual consciousness goes away. They just go on living, not remembering what happened but…  _You_ must remember, or you won't be able to change your mistakes. So be careful… Decisions always have consequences. If you get too wound up you might find yourself reliving past events. You'll forget if you don't focus. Don't worry about changing things that happened to you or others around you. Worry about changing your own actions." Ikkaku looked back into Yumichika's eyes, and he could hear Yumichika plain as day saying that he shouldn't try to stop the car accident that caused his death.

"So ghosts are…"

"Ghosts are spirits who have freed themselves from the time-rift. Whatever happens now… All the Yumichikas in every other world… none of that affects me, and I don't have to replay my lives," Yumichika explained. "It's like cheating death when you're already dead."

"Wait, so if we're stuck forever reenacting our lives, then how does anyone get to the afterlife? Why are you telling me all this?"

Yumichika ignored him. "If I were to take you right now to 'dead-world', you'd lose that chance. You'd directly cross over into death and that isn't what nature intends. You're supposed to be reborn at least a couple times without you knowing… Going straight to the spiritual plane and staying there… There could be horrible consequences, and I don't know if you're ready for that."

"I could handle it!" Ikkaku insisted, seeing that Yumichika was disappointed, maybe thinking him weak, too weak to handle the underworld or hell or whatever that place had been.

"If you're really serious about this, you need to prepare... If you're going to come with me… please, consider carefully, because I miss you, and I don't want your spirit to be torn apart if you fail to meet nature's guidelines… Do you value the life you lead now? Do you care? Answer those questions and maybe then you'll be ready."

Ikkaku just glared at him as Yumichika floated around him, slowly dissolving into mist and disappearing altogether.

"Think about it," he heard, before he was left alone in the night.

* * *

 _Oh lord when I get to heaven,_  
Please let me bring my man.  
When he comes, tell me that you'll let him in.  
Father tell me if you can.


	7. Chapter 7

_Hell is empty, and all the devils are here._

* * *

Ikkaku hadn't been able to go to sleep last night. He lay awake all night in bed, just staring at the ceiling like it held the answers to the universe. Part of him was afraid that Yumichika was gone for good until he made a decision, but he knew that couldn't be the case. The brat might tease him all the time about leaving, but he knew that Yumichika would come back. He'd get lonely with no one to talk to in the material plane.

He wasn't gone for good. No, Yumichika had left him alone on purpose to give him some time to think, so think he did.

He liked being alive, really he did. His life had been one big amalgamation of pain and screw-ups, but since he'd come out here for a new start, he realized that there was still so much he wanted to do. His brush with death, and losing the living Yumichika, those things had really opened his eyes. He wanted to live, honestly he did. He wanted to be like Yumichika had been when he was alive, open to doing new things and seeing as many things as he could.

Yumichika hadn't cared about money or fame, those had just been the products of his dream of sharing his passion on stage with the world. Good things had just come to him because he'd been thinking good thoughts. Happiness had manifested itself in Yumichika's life because he had believed that it would. It had been beautiful. Ikkaku wanted to do things like that, to go to great places and meet people, to feel like he was getting something good out of his own decisions. He wanted to be an honest man and earn money for a family, maybe have a pet and a nice car. He wanted to leave behind a reason to be missed when he died. He wanted there to be something left on earth, someone who was grateful to his contributions, someone who thought he was worthy of mourning.

Maybe it was the curse of being able to see and talk to a dead person's spirit that was doing this to him. Maybe Yumichika had been right about entering the spiritual plane whilst still alive screwing with a person's mind. He was starting to go insane with longing. He had loved Yumichika, really he had. He loved talking to Yumichika and seeing him every day, but that just wasn't enough anymore. He'd thought for a while that his life could be complete like this, that he could be happy as a hermit whose life revolved around a pretty dead guy and burying corpses, but now he wasn't so sure. He… he just  _craved…_

He wanted to hold Yumichika hand, to kiss him, to be able to bury his face in Yumichika's neck and feel a  _pulse._  He was so close, but it was a cruel illusion. Yumichika couldn't provide him with real love, real companionship, bodyheat, satisfaction, or affection. They couldn't share a life together. Maybe they would've been able to, but now that his mind was spinning like this, he didn't think he could bear it.

Yumichika couldn't go on dates with him, Yumichika couldn't feel what he could, Yumichika couldn't take the place of a living person. It was all a lie. He might not even be real. Ikkaku could've just gone nuts. Sure, Cindy had seen Yumichika too, but they both could be sharing a hallucination.

It wasn't real, nothing was real about this.

What did he really have to live for anyways? Pennies to his name, a crappy job digging pits in the dark, a bad past with a criminal record and jerks who wanted to kill him, a dead family, a friend who was getting his own life back? What was any of that worth?

All he wanted was to fix things, to change things, to bring Yumichika back to life and let him continue on with those wonderful dreams of his. Even if he had to go to Yumichika's wedding and watch him kiss Kaa, it would better than always reaching out to him and feeling nothing.

There were voices speaking all around him, coming from every direction. He didn't even know if they were his own mind or those spirits that he'd seemed to start attracting. Maybe he really had become a spirit beacon like Yumichika had suggested. He should have listened to Yumichika. He never should have gone to the spirit world. This was driving him crazy. He couldn't handle this aching, this longing for something substantial.

"-Something about that wish that he mentioned."

"He needs to be ready, oh yes, you must be ready."

" _STOP IT! Shut up, wake him-_

"-away and keep drowning in your poisoned air. If you were to-"

"Following him wouldn't help anything. Dead, Ikkaku, what can you do when you're dead?"

He started clutching his forehead, clenching his eyes shut. Yumichika's voice started to fade in and out of his hearing, words inaudible through all of the others who were talking.

"A wish, yes, a wish,"

"If you were really to change this reality, then you must know what you want, right?"

"How to fix everything, think, you must think-"

" _Have you no brain?_ "

Ikkaku tossed and turned, finally getting up and turning the light on. The shadows were starting to play tricks on him. Flopping back down into the mess of sheets, he tried again to get comfortable, but couldn't.

"What is it that you want?"

"I  _want_  things to go back to normal!" Ikkaku answered finally, just trying to get everything to shut up. Why should he even be struggling to come up with an answer to this? If every possibility had already happened, then he'd already come up with an answer at some point. Things would be okay. He just needed to calm down, even if it seemed impossible. "I just wish Yumichika was alive again."

"Oh, but what would that fix? You saw, you  _saw-"_

"-dead body, and who needs that, right? Think, no, you must think carefully-"

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to!" Ikkaku shouted, sitting up in bed. When he flopped back, he realized that everything had fallen silent, unnervingly so. "There you go, Yumichika. I just mastered reality. Leave me the fuck alone," he muttered bitterly, pulling his blankets up.

No, if he were to die, what would that fix? Nothing. But what was keeping him here, anyway? Nothing. He'd never done anything good with his life, and Yumichika being dead was proof of that. He had nothing to lose now. If he were to go, to cross the river of death again, to make it to the Underworld… what would that matter?

He just didn't know what to do, and it was tearing him up inside, so for the first time in a decade and a half, Ikkaku prayed. Just for a little while, not more than a few seconds. He just offered a desperate plea to anything that might hear him. He just needed some advice. He didn't know what to do. What should he do?

As he went to sleep, he dreamed of Yumichika, and this time when they held hands, it felt real.

* * *

_There it is, babe, you're all dead,_   
_What, did you think you'd be rewarded?_

_Try hard not to lose me in these flames,_   
_They said Hell was fire, but it's cold here,_   
_Cold like Earth, the same…  
_ _What do you fear?_

_. . ._

* * *

Renji had been caught laughably easily. When he'd lost track of which direction exactly Ichigo's voice was coming from through the maze of rooms, he'd been nabbed. A sack was thrown over his head, his arms were grabbed, and he ended up tied to a support beam and hit in the face over and over. Stunned, he just lay there for a while, slumped forward. They must've assumed he'd been knocked out, because he was left alone for a while.

Distant noises kept penetrating his ears, which felt like they'd had cotton shoved inside of them. There was a lot of crackling and shouting. He'd been hit in the head pretty damn hard. He was pretty sure that his nose was bleeding because he could taste salt. Why had this happened? He didn't know. Maybe they'd realized that he'd seen something he wasn't supposed to. Were they going to leave him here and whoever else they'd offed and then tear the house down to get rid of the evidence? Were his body parts going to end up on the black market like in his nightmares? Shit, he should've just stayed in bed.

It was fair to say that things weren't exactly going according to plan.

"What are you doing sitting around?" came a snarky voice that took him a moment to recognize. In some brilliant stroke of luck, Szayelaporro had come upon him, perhaps not realizing why he was tied up. "Oh, here." He heard some rustling, and then there was a sharp prick against his arm where he was tied up.

The guy cut him loose with a scalpel and dragged him to his feet. "Here, hold some of this stuff," Granz demanded, shoving his arms full with books and lab equipment. "It'll be destroyed if we don't bring it with us."

"Huh?" Renji looked up dazedly, eyes unfocused and staring past Granz down the hall. The light was a hellish orange-yellow, and there was a funny smell that he could just barely sense. Another scream pierced the night air, and Renji recognized a garbled version of his name.

Ichigo was calling for him _._

He immediately dropped the stuff, shoving past the skinny scientist, who grabbed him by the back of the collar just as quickly. Renji was frantic by that point, shouting and kicking his legs as he was dragged away down the hall. Szayel was somehow able to snatch up his precious notes and still drag him along without skipping a beat.

"No, let go! Ichigo,  _Ichigo!"_ he shouted, listening to the screams of his lover get farther away and suddenly cut off. "Let me go!" he yelled, motions still rather sluggish from being hit over the head so hard.

"Shut up, we have to get out of here," said Szayel, who had taken it upon himself to knee him in the gut, grab him, and start pulling him with a strength that those skinny arms shouldn't have possessed. "Can't you see that the house is on fire?" Once those panicked words left the scientist's mouth, Renji stopped struggling, becoming a dead weight that required the man to readjust where he was pulling. He stopped with a huff, grabbing Renji under each armpit and dragging him backwards, notes stuffed down his shirt.

The shock held Renji for a full three seconds as his dazed mind tried to process that. The house was going to burn down. Szayel didn't seem to be right, but to be fair, the house was really big. Renji finally identified that smell as smoke, and it did seem a bit warmer than normal. Those eerie crackling noises could very well be flames or cinders falling. The house was burning? Then...

"Wait, we can't leave them in here!"

"Yes, we can. Just like this," Szayel said guiltlessly, flinging the back-door open after he'd dragged him down the steps. Then he shoved him outside, abandoned him, and ran across the lawn, gathering with a few of the servants who had already escaped, retreating down the hill with them.

"AAhhhhh!" Renji suddenly whipped around, recognizing that voice. As he pulled himself up off the grass, he could see someone rounding the corner of the house. It was that blue-haired guy, and he had his hand fisted in Ichigo's hair, pulling him with him. In his other hand was a gun.

"-zen's fucking  _lost_  it. We're getting the fuck out of here, now come on."

"Iya, Iya, Rem!  _REM!"_ Ichigo screamed, fighting Grimmjow tooth and nail to get back inside, and suddenly Renji realized that Ichigo thought he was still asleep in bed.

"Hey, let him go!" Renji shouted, running towards them, stopping dead when the guy idly pointed the gun at him, seeming much too calm for someone who had just come out of a burning building. The guy was hardcore if he had seriously just  _walked_ out of a house that was aflame. I mean, who  _does_  that?

"Oh, there you are, cherry-cola. Someone cut ya' loose, huh? I was hopin' we'd run inta' you before we left. Look, Ichigo. He's fine, see? Tch." Grimmjow shook his hostage a little, not relinquishing his tight grip, causing Ichigo to shout in pain. When Ichigo saw Renji, he made a noise of relief, calming down considerably. "Look, he's shakin' in his boots, all cuz' of a little fire. What do you want with a guy like that? How was he in bed, huh? Better'n me?"

"Probably," Renji mumbled. Ichigo's eyes popped open, frantically looking to him to communicate that he needed to shut up, _now._  Grimmjow bared his teeth, but after a moment he just grinned sinisterly, eyes narrowing as he raised the gun to Renji casually.

"Woah man, just… just ease back," Renji said, holding his hands up, eyeing Ichigo, wondering if he could get away with lunging for the gun and making a run for it with Ichigo. He couldn't call himself a man if he was just going to stand there and let them be threatened.

Grimmjow was onto him, because the moment he edged forward, Grimmjow cocked the gun. Renji sighed. It had been worth a try, but it was no use. This guy was in the mob, and wouldn't be averse to shooting him for laughs. Renji might've had a bad past from a bad city, but Grimmjow had obviously lived that life too and he was  _not_  bluffing. They were completely fucked.

"Sorry, but you ain't gettin' my squeeze tonight. Why don't you just get outta' here," Grimmjow suggested, ignoring Ichigo, who was kicking him in the legs, trying to get him to let go. "Ichigo was gone for three years, and now suddenly you care? Psh. Ya' know what he did for you, right? You were on a hit-list and he volunteered ta' take your place. He saved your pathetic life."

Renji just stared at them bitterly, confidence dwindling. Grimmjow just bared his teeth, going on.

"And you fucking  _let_  him!" Grimmjow shouted at him, furious, fisting his hand in Ichigo's hair so tight that Ichigo let out a sharp gasp and went still, just trying to bear the pain. "What kind of man are you?!"

Renji's face fell, but still he said nothing, because it was true, wasn't it.

"What kind of scum bag comes back after  _three years?_  You don't deserve him. You didn't  _deserve_  for him to do that for you. Just  _get out of here!"_  Grimmjow challenged, and finally it occurred to Renji that Grimmjow really might have some fond feelings for Ichigo. He obviously cared for him as more than some fuck toy, even if he was hurting him like that. Ichigo's scalp had to be on fire, but Grimmjow's voice was wrenched with emotion.

"I finish what I start. I was here first!" Renji shouted, heart aching because all of that stuff Grimmjow had said was true. He was sure that Grimmjow was a good guy and everything, he was sure that he was hurting because he'd found out that Ichigo wasn't in love with him anymore, but Renji couldn't lose Ichigo again, he just couldn't, even if all that shit was true. He wasn't letting him go now that he had a chance to fix things. They'd make it out of this.

"C'mon man… Just give him back… He doesn't want you," Renji said firmly, lowering his hands a little. He could see Grimmjow's hand relax on Ichigo's hair, but not enough that he could pull loose. Ichigo was in the middle of a coughing fit, caught in a cloud of smoke that was billowing out the back door.

"You're gonna' have ta' prove ta' me that you care about him more than I do," Grimmjow said lowly, glaring at him.

Renji stayed silent, just staring at them for a few moments. The heat coming from the building was getting him really antsy. How long did it take for the police and the fire department to arrive?

"C'mon, just let him go," Renji said again, thinking that maybe there was a chance that he could reason with the man.

Grimmjow made a noise of mock-thought, seeming to have snapped somehow. His attitude was sarcastic and eerily calm, and Renji's gut was clenching up because he was getting that psychotic vibe from Grimmjow again.

"You know, sometimes my conscience kinda' bothers me… but not this time," he said with a huge grin, and suddenly, he slugged Ichigo in the gut hard enough to knock him over. Then he snagged him by the wrist, dragged him a little ways towards the house, all the while whistling merrily. By then Ichigo had started kicking and screaming again, unable to curse Grimmjow out while he was like this. Ichigo was still just as fierce, but his strength had seriously dwindled now that he was hardly eating, and that made it pitifully easy for Grimmjow to manhandle him.

Then Grimmjow kicked him in the head  _hard,_ threw him over his shoulder, and kicked the door in. "I guess we're goin' back inside, toots."

Grimmjow's foolish impulsive decision seemed so crazy to Renji that he could hardly make himself believe that this was real. It all happened so fast that Renji just stood there stunned for a second, watching the reflection of the surrounding light splay across the dark windows of the old house. It really was going up in flames. It looked like hell in there.

Renji was screaming then, sure that they would come back, but Grimmjow wasn't paying attention, already having disappeared back inside the burning house. The idea of following them was terrifying, but the thought of living without Ichigo again was even more so.

After only a short moment of hesitation, Renji followed. By the time Renji had gotten back in and ran back upstairs, the air temperature had increased immensely. Rather than feeling pleasant like in a sauna, this air was hot and dry, and the more he moved, the more black char started to coat his hands and arms. There were burning sections of carpet and wallpaper, waves of heat rising from the ground, and half the banister from the main staircase had already collapsed.

Renji pulled his shirt up over his mouth, freaking out a little when pieces of the ceiling started falling down, searing his arms. He'd probably only been in there for about three minutes, still calling frantically for Ichigo, growing more and more panicked. He really didn't want to burn alive in here, but he wasn't going to leave unless Ichigo was with him, even if he ended up suffocating while he was searching.

Finally, he was sure that he'd heard someone, and after another moment to make sure, he heard the noise again, quickly following it, even if it was only another person still trapped in here. Ducking under a burning beam that had fallen, he wormed his way down the hallway, making a break for it when he got to a large clear spot. As far as he could see, only half of the house was on fire so far, so he booked it down the hall, skidding to a stop at an open door.

"Ichigo?! Where are ya'?!" he called, listening hard. He thought he could hear him call him again, and then there was a muffled sound coming from the left wing of the house. It seemed like he'd already been in here forever, and he was getting concerned, knowing that he couldn't go back the way he came. They'd have to jump from a window or something, or risk running through the flaming wreckage.

His socked foot slipped on the hardwood floor, but he kept running, pushing himself back up and shouting at the top of his lungs, hoping that Ichigo could make a noise just one more time so he could find him.

Just as he located the room that Ichigo was surely in, he heard a click from behind him, and before he even knew what was happening, he was on his knees, holding his gut.

He looked down, and for one moment all he could do was watch blood start blossoming under his white t-shirt, causing it to stick to his belly and get his hands wet.

The sound caught up to him, the explosion of the gunpowder finally hitting his ears, so loud that he could hardly believe it. He'd been shot.

He flopped forward onto his face, catching himself with one arm, body still reeling from the shockwave. He kept the other hand on his abdomen, and he choked on a scream that wouldn't come out. Someone had  _shot_  him. The pain finally hit him, and it was so intense and unbearable that he thought he would die. Black and white pricklets were fuzzing his vision, and for a minute, all he could do was sit there, hardly hearing the taunting words of the man behind him.

"-show up years later and steal someone else's territory, well you're dead wrong. I don't  _care_  if you were brave enough to follow me in here. You'll have to do more than that. If you can find him before you bleed to death, you can keep him." With that, Renji could hear some footsteps disappearing, but still all he could focus on was the pain pounding through his gut. He figured that a couple of his ribs had shattered and that he'd punctured a few vital organs. The bullet had gone all the way through and had probably buried itself in the far wall somewhere.

Probably a full two minutes had passed, and Renji could hear screaming in his ears, or were those sirens? Maybe both, maybe both. With more strength than he knew he'd possessed, he propped himself up with one hand, struggling to his knees. He got himself to the side of the wall, using one leg to push himself up. The sound of the burning house was so loud in his ears that nothing else seemed real, or was that hollow noise his own heartbeat? With his city-blood, he'd always been prepared to die this way, but now that it was happening, it didn't seem fair. He was scared. He didn't want to die.

Something warm was in his mouth and with a dull note of surprise he realized that it was blood, rolling right down his chin and neck. He stumbled around, clamping his left hand over his wound as tight as he could, even though that was doing nothing to stop the bleeding.

Renji was sure that Ichigo had called him from somewhere back there, so he turned around, staggering, nearly falling to his knees again. The pain, the pain was so bad that he thought he was going to throw up, but no, he couldn't stop, he had to get up. If he stopped, he'd stop forever. Shaking all over, he steadied himself against the wall, trying to catch his breath in the smoky air.

His head started to spin, and he immediately knew that he wasn't gonna' get out of this one. He'd been gunned down, and he was coughing up blood. He was going to die. That was it, he was going to die in here.

He wouldn't make it out, but Ichigo, Ichigo had to. Renji wouldn't die until he rescued him first. Ichigo had saved his life and now Renji had to repay his debt.

"Ich-" he tried to talk, but found that it hurt too much. Breathing took nearly all his strength. Something was wrong with his lungs. Maybe not his lungs. That could just be the smoke, or maybe his diaphragm had gotten messed up when the bullet had ripped through him.

He stumbled back down the hallway, seeing that the fire had almost caught up to him. He kept going, unafraid, hardly even wincing when he stumbled over a burning section of wall that had fallen in. What was there to be scared of now? He was going to die anyway. Who cared if he caught on fire? Ichigo, only Ichigo. He was the only thing that mattered. Renji had to find him.

His vision kept trying to go black, but Renji wouldn't let it, he wouldn't let himself stop walking yet. Stepping over a fallen burning support beam, Renji listened for the screaming again, passing by a room with an open door.

This must've been where he'd watched Ichimaru die earlier.

The ceiling was falling down inside the room, fire so thick on the walls and floors that it looked like an oven. The air was waving, messing with Renji's already faulty vision. The heat was absolutely blinding, searing his face just from facing towards the source. No, this wasn't right. Grimmjow had come in and stashed Ichigo in the rapidly shrinking part of house that still wasn't on fire. Back, Renji had to go back, this was the wrong way.

He could vaguely see someone laying on the floor in the far distance of the large room, and someone was sitting near them. It was… It was that girl.

There she was, simply kneeling by the body, not even paying attention to the burning around her. Renji watched for a moment, not able to see her face from the angle she was sitting at. Ash was raining down, coating the air so thick that it looked like it was snowing.

He thought about calling out to her, but changed his mind. She was beyond saving. Her soul had already died along with that silver-haired man. Renji turned away.

They were going to burn together, but not him and Ichigo, no. He wouldn't let Ichigo burn. If there was one thing he could do before he died, it was to repay his debt. Ichigo had given his life and freedom to save him, and now Renji would do the same.

Even if it meant going up in flames.

* * *

_And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me  
_ _For all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me_


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me_

* * *

"I'm not afraid."

"Wake up, Ikkaku… and follow me."

Ikkaku opened his eyes, and when he looked back at Yumichika, his eyes were violet, his cheeks were flesh-toned, and his hair was the darkest of night skies.

"I wish…"

* * *

After what seemed like hours, but in reality couldn't have been more than three minutes, Renji found Ichigo tied up and gagged in a closet. Renji could feel the fire creeping up behind him, but he didn't turn, not ready to face the hopelessness of their situation.

He wasted no time in sitting him up and checking his pulse. Ichigo made a choking noise beneath his gag, and Renji immediately removed the bandanna from his face with shaking bloody fingers. Ichigo sat up dazedly, freaking out as soon as he saw Renji's wound.

"It's not my blood," Renji lied, knowing that Ichigo wouldn't believe that for a minute. He didn't. Ichigo seemed stunned that Grimmjow had actually  _shot_  him. Maybe Ichigo had gotten used to some softer side of Grimmjow and hadn't seen the jealous rage until it was too late.

Renji wouldn't talk about it or say what happened, even though Ichigo was getting furious and desperate, shouting at him when he wouldn't say anything or acknowledge his injury. It made Renji feel like an asshole to not help Ichigo when he was trying to talk, and he knew how frustrating that must be, but there wasn't time for that. There wasn't any time left at all.

Renji strained against the rope, feeling blood oozing out of his gut as his muscles tensed up; finally he snapped the rope, leaving a rash on his hands. He wiped Ichigo's cheeks, which were smeared with ash, just making it worse when he added blood. There were clear tracks through the soot where Ichigo's eyes had watered from the smoke, and he had never looked more beautiful. Renji just hung onto him, breathing heavily, pain overtaking him. His panting started to speed up as his body tried to compensate for his injury. He wouldn't last much longer.

Renji was scared. He didn't know what dying was like. What would happen?

"Hur'!" Ichigo kept shouting, pointing at him, upset that he was hurt, but Renji didn't pay attention, getting dragged to his feet when Ichigo stood up. Renji stumbled around, barricading them in the room and testing the window, opening it up to see how far it was to the ground and to let out some smoke. He could vaguely see some flashing lights in the distance, the reflections splaying onto the walls of the building.

It occurred to him that they could call for help, that a fireman might see the open window and climb up to rescue them, but Renji didn't think he had the strength to shout. They'd have to jump down and try to make it across the lawn.

No, it was too high for them to jump, but maybe Ichigo could climb down. There were curtains, but they didn't look thick enough to support their weight if they used them as rope. The fire wasn't coming into the room for some reason, and on further inspection, Renji saw that the walls of this room were brick. They wouldn't burn alive, but they would still die if they stayed here. The smoke was coming in thick enough to suffocate them, and the window wasn't letting it out quick enough.

Trying to stumble back over to the closet, Renji finally collapsed, coughing violently from the smoke, enough that blood starting pouring down his chin onto his collar. His chest and belly were soaked, shirt sticking to his skin. The pain was so much that he was practically crying.

"Go," Renji coughed, not even having the energy to sit up anymore. "Go, save yourself." He weakly pointed towards the open window. "You can climb down the gutter-piping."

Maybe Ichigo was still woozy from being kicked in the head, because he just stared at Renji for a minute. Renji tried again, speaking in short gasps. "You can climb out and try to jump to the ground. Hurry, go."

"Wha' abou' you? I… I," Ichigo stuttered frantically, coming over to him and fluttering his hands over his wounds. He seemed to be muttering a plan to himself. Maybe Ichigo could get help if he hurried. Maybe he could climb down and get a firefighter with a ladder to come get him and then they could go to the hospital and hope he hadn't died from his gun-shot wound by then. Maybe there was still hope for them.

Renji felt so weak. He didn't know how long he could stay awake. Renji didn't think he could make it longer than twenty minutes, and he didn't think a firefighter would come inside the building when it was so structurally unsound, but maybe Ichigo could still get out at least.

"I'm dying, Ichigo," he explained as the younger man kept trying to pull him up. Renji weakly tried to shove his arms away. Ichigo made a helpless upset noise, face wrenching as he struggled to drag his dead weight towards the window. "It's no use, I can't get up. You've gotta' go. There's no time left."

Ichigo shook his head insistently, pulling Renji's shirt up to look at the bullet-hole. Renji clutched Ichigo's arm unsteadily, trying to get him to listen.

"Ichigo, you've got to get out of here," Renji said weakly. "Just leave me. I can't climb down with you, and you can't carry me." Ichigo shook his head again, punching the floor. "Even if you could, I'm gonna' die anyways. Just get out of here,  _please._ "

Ichigo screamed in frustration, hitting him the face, furious that Renji was just giving up. "Be-" he struggled, irritated and panicked, "Fu' you! I  _ha'e_ you!" he shouted, cursing him, grabbing Renji's shoulders and shaking him, as if he could knock the pain right out of him. Renji winced when Ichigo said he hated him, but he knew that was just the adrenaline talking. Ichigo pressed his ear down onto Renji's chest, listening for his heartbeat for a second, before pointing violently at it to prove to Renji that he was still alive, that there was still a chance.

"Ichigo… You have to live," Renji said gently, raising a hand to Ichigo's cheek. That really seemed to get to Ichigo, because he began to sniffle, kneeling next to him and clinging to that hand, holding it there on his face.

He kept shaking his head, trying to say 'no' and 'please'. Renji held his hand, squeezing back against the shaking fingers, eyes drifting closed; he felt really tired all of a sudden. Ichigo's face screwed up and then he began to cry hard, eyes clenched shut as he rocked back and forth, holding Renji's arm like it could keep him here if he held really tight. Renji swallowed hard, feeling a little awkward as he tried to comfort Ichigo, who was sobbing his heart out.

"Let me go," Renji whispered, looking up to Ichigo, who was hardly visible through the smoke now, or was his vision just darkening? "And go live,  _please_." Ichigo shook his head solemnly, tears dripping shiny tracks onto his dirty cheeks. He was red in the face and sniffling, but he wouldn't budge. Ichigo wasn't leaving. Renji sighed in disappointment.

"I got shot tryin' ta' save you, are you gonna' let that go to waste?" Renji breathed out carefully. He knew that was a low blow, because Ichigo had sacrificed his freedom and his ability to speak so that Renji could live, but still Renji said it, desperate to give Ichigo a chance to get out of here and start a new life. Ichigo just hit him in the face, stubbornly planting his ass on the floor. He supposed that had been pretty predictable. "Fine, you jackass," Renji coughed. "At least try to call for help."

Ichigo nodded shakily, getting up and stumbling to the window. He stuck his upper body out and waved his arms, trying to catch some attention as he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Heyyy! HEY! HEY!  _HEY! WE'RE OVER HERE!"_

Renji smiled a little. Ichigo almost sounded like his old self. Those were the most normal-sounding words he'd been able to string together since they'd found each other. At least if he died here, Ichigo's shouting would be the last thing he heard. That wouldn't be so bad. He'd kind of missed it.

Ichigo wiped his nose with his wrist, turning to Renji as if he was asking whether that was good or if he should do it again. "Yeah, good enough," Renji conceded. It was a good enough try. No one was going to find them in time, anyways. "Okay, let's get in the closet… again," he joked. Ichigo didn't laugh, but he managed a half-smile as he wiped his nose again, using his forearm this time.

Ichigo helped him get into the closet, shutting them in, perhaps with the hope that it would keep the smoke out long enough for someone to come rescue them. Then he laid his head down on Renji's chest, arm over his bleeding abdomen, half-petting the spot where he'd been shot like that could somehow fix it. The bleeding had finally slowed at least, but that wasn't a good thing; he was running out of blood and his heart was close to giving up. Renji let Ichigo lay there on top of him, wheezing in pain, petting Ichigo's prickly hair with shaking hands.

"I still think you should go… You still have a chance." Ichigo made a wet stubborn noise, coughing to get smoke out of his lungs. "Okay, you stubborn jackass… Let's go to sleep, then… It won't hurt if we just go to sleep."

"Mhm." Ichigo sniffled, weeping to himself again. Renji knew that it must be horrible to wait for your lover to die. He gave a shuddery sigh, pain shooting through him again with each breath. He'd never seen Ichigo cry before, not even over his mother's grave, and it scared him shitless. He really must be about to die if Ichigo was crying. They were both going to die. At least they were together. Part of him was selfishly glad that Ichigo was going to stay here with him. He was afraid to die; he didn't want to be alone when it happened.

Ichigo's hand wormed into his, blood doing nothing to warm their fingers. It didn't make sense that he felt so cold when this room was like an oven. Maybe this was what dying felt like.

"Ya' scared?" Ichigo shook his head 'no', holding him tighter, crying softly. "Don't cry, Ichigo… It's okay… It's just time for bed," he mumbled, eyes closing.

"Mm," Ichigo sat up, face concerned. He started to freak out and cry harder, trying to make Renji open his eyes back up, but Renji just calmly brought Ichigo's head back down to his chest, stroking his hair a little with diminishing strength. Ichigo held him tight, sending shocks of pain through his gut, but Renji still smiled, listening as Ichigo told him he loved him through sniffly gasps.

"I love you too…" Renji sighed, hand falling limp. Even petting Ichigo's hair had become too taxing. Ichigo sat up again, grabbing him by the upper arms, shaking him a little with a desperate whine. Renji got that Ichigo still had hope, that he wanted him to stay awake, but he was just so tired. Even breathing was getting to be too much. He didn't think he could wait for someone to come save them, but he got that Ichigo was holding onto those seconds, hoping so badly that they could just make it a little longer. Renji tried; he was trying. It would be such a shame if someone rescued them and he was already dead.

"Ow," Renji moaned. "Hey, that hurts," he mumbled, barely intelligible. Ichigo let him go with a concerned noise, putting a hand on his forehead as if he was checking for a fever.

Renji could tell when Ichigo finally accepted that it was a hopeless effort, because his face wrenched up in grief and he leaned down, kissing him on the mouth with shaking lips that were wet with tears.

Renji kissed back as much as he could, barely feeling the tears falling onto his face. He'd finally stopped bleeding altogether, but maybe he just couldn't feel it anymore. It didn't even feel like he had a lower body at all at this point. His legs didn't exist. His lungs were on fire. Renji just closed his eyes. Ichigo tried to open them again, but Renji couldn't lift his hand again to stop him this time, just lying there. He was so tired. He just wanted to go to sleep.

"I'm tired… I just wanna' sleep," he whispered, laying there, feeling nothing but the pinching of Ichigo's arms around him. Ichigo sobbed pitifully and clung onto him, but lay still otherwise. "Sweet dreams."

. . .

* * *

_No more dreaming like a ghost, so in love with the wrong world._


End file.
